


Friends and foes

by marlowe78



Series: ...and a chick named Ellie [2]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller Are Best Friends, Alec Hardy Needs A Hug, Case Fic, Crime, Ellie Miller needs a hug, Gen, Hurt Alec Hardy, Post-Season/Series 03, Swearing, Women Being Awesome, smart Alec, smart Ellie, so spoilers for all 3 seasons!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 70,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22777180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marlowe78/pseuds/marlowe78
Summary: Even as he realized where he was – in a field, wet and wobbly and confused, about ten miles out of Broadchurch – he knew that something very, very not good had happened.Because the last thing he clearly remembered was picking up his daughter from school.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Daisy Hardy, Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller
Series: ...and a chick named Ellie [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637476
Comments: 244
Kudos: 242





	1. Chapter 1

He opened his eyes to a flat, grey sky and slight drizzle wetting his face and hair. A bird flew past his line of vision, a pigeon maybe, or something of equal size.

What was a pigeon doing in his bedroom? 

Come to think of it, why wasn’t _he_ in his bedroom but on the cold, damp ground with cold, wet grass under his fingertips and cold, wet air surrounding him and making him shiver?

Hardy blinked. 

“Wha’?” he croaked, then coughed when the terrible dryness in his mouth caught up with his brain. When racking his mind for a reason for his situation and location didn’t lead to any results, he groaned and tried to sit up. His left hand landed in a puddle and he whined in protest at the squishy feeling of cold, wet mud squeezing through his fingers. When he looked at his hand, though, it wasn’t the mud on it that made him frown. 

Beneath the dirt, he could clearly see lines and letters, written in dark – black? – colour. Wiping at it with his right hand didn’t just prove fruitless, it also brought the lines and letters on that hand to his attention. 

“Wh…a?”

 _Cunt_ was clearly visible on the back of his right, _cock!!!_ in his palm. Strangely detached, he marvelled at the contradicting messages, wondering if the writer had been drunk or just plain confused. 

On his left hand, someone had drawn a very crude penis with hairy balls. 

Okay. 

No, still no clue why he would have let someone draw on his hands like that, with waterproof marker of all things, and something in that line of thought jolted his brain into gear and he cursed loud and crudely as he sat up and found his clothes all in place but not all of them at the right spot. Wait – not everything. Someone had stolen his socks and his shoes were left-to-right and his shirt was buttoned wrong. 

Patting his pockets led to finding his phone – out of batteries or too damp to work, it wouldn’t switch on – and his wallet still there, complete with credit-cards and driver’s license and ID but sans money. His watch, usually around his wrist, was gone. What time was it? Definitely morning, that much was clear. Maybe eight? Ish? 

He cursed again, raised himself first onto his knees and then up on wobbly legs after putting his shoes back on the correct feet and trudged off towards where he could see the road. 

Even as he realized where he was – about ten miles out of Broadchurch – he knew that something very, very not good had happened.

Because the last thing he clearly remembered was picking up his daughter from school. 

On Wednesday afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, had to delete the previous notes because they ended up in the wrong chapter.   
> Anyway, just so you know, this is not _that_ kind of fic. If you need some more information about the story and what happened for your own sanity and peace of mind, drop me a note and I'll tell you.   
> Don't worry - he's fine. Bit shaken but not stirred. 
> 
> Have fun - Marlowe


	2. Chapter 2

It was eight-forty-three on Thursday and Ellie was running late. She’d dropped off Tom, who’d dragged his toes worse than usual today and thanked the stars and every god in the universe that Olly had taken Fred from her today. He was back in Broadchurch for two weeks, holiday as he’d said but she thought it had a lot more to do with his mother finally deciding she needed professional help and he was here to find a good therapist for her.

In his own way, Olly was a good boy. And well, he _was_ a good journalist with a passion for truth, if maybe a bit eager and quick to expose before thinking of the consequences. Ellie hoped his placement at one of the big-wig papers in London would fine-tune his skills in that area a bit better and focus his enthusiasm. It wasn’t that she disliked journalists as a species, not like Hardy. It was more that she detested the press as a conglomeration of news-hungry, truth-bending and headline-hunting pieces of shit. 

If her nephew would find a place apart from those shitty humans, she might even be proud of him. 

“Hey, Bob,” she greeted the Constable at the ground floor. “I’m sorry, can’t chat – way too late!” She hurried past but heard him laugh after her. 

“Don’t worry, Ell. Old Grumpy’s not here yet.”

Briefly, she wondered what could have kept Mr Punctual Boss Who Never Slept away from his beloved desk but was too glad that she could pretend she’d been here since eight. Nobody would tell on her – they’d all been in the same boat once or twice before. 

Just as she was dropping in her seat, her landline rang. “Wessex Police, Detective S-“ was all she could get out before her lovely boss interrupted her. 

“Miller, I need you to come down to the hospital. Bring someone from Forensics, whoever’s on staff right now.”

“Oh, lovely morning to you, too, Sir. Will-“

“ _Miller_. Now!” And he hung up. Well, great. He wasn’t even here and still he managed to piss her off within seconds. With a sigh, Ellie rang SOCO and Evelyn Llewellyn was kind enough – or maybe she drew the short straw – to accompany her. 

“And he didn’t say what this is about? Murder? Assault? Someone breaking into the medicine cabinets?” she asked while she checked her van. Ellie shook her head.

“No, nothing. I mean, there’s short and to the point and then there’s DI Hardy.” Though it had been particularly few words this time, she had to admit. 

They drove separately but arrived at the same time and when no grumpy DI was waiting for them outside, she went to ask at the desk. Before she could speak, Maria Xi made a beeline for her. “Ellie, hey. Follow me, he’s in Room 6.” 

At that, Ellie’s eyebrows shot upwards and with a quick, worried look at Evelyn, she followed the nurse. Usually, she would chat with Maria, but something in the line of her back said she was in high-professional-mode right now and that only added to her worries. Evelyn made a motion towards the van and Ellie nodded, not sure what she had wanted to get across but certain she knew what she was doing. She was one of Brian’s best SOCOs and usually quick on her feet. 

Maria knocked on the door to Room 6 and entered, Ellie followed and then she stopped in the doorway because she couldn’t quite believe her eyes.

On the table, clad in a hospital-gown, sat her boss. His bare feet were dangling above the floor and his hair was slightly damp and completely dishevelled – so much worse than usual – and his face looked drawn and tired. Also worse than she had ever seen him, and she had seen him literally at Death’s door. His bare arms, his bare legs, his feet and his hands and his toes and basically everything that she could see except the face and neck was covered over and over in words. Black Permanent Marker, if she had to guess, and while she couldn’t read everything, she would bet her house that every word was an insult. She saw ‘cunt’ and ‘dick’ and ‘kill the cop’ and ‘fucking cocksucker’ and so much more that she would wash her son’s mouth out with soap if he were to use one of them. 

It might have looked funny but there was an air of menace in all that, a particular nastiness hiding behind the black letters. 

A chill ran up her spine. What the fuck had happened?

“Wish I knew,” Hardy croaked and Ellie realized that she’d spoken out loud. With an embarrassed cough, she stepped into the room. “Did you bring SOCO?”

“Evelyn’s getting her stuff right – ah, there she is.”

To Evelyn’s credit, she reacted much better than Ellie had. She hardly faltered in her step and smiled at him. “Sir, that’s a new one,” to which Hardy gave a little smirk. “Are you …” she petered off, clearly aware that a) – he wasn’t alright and b) – he wouldn’t say so even with a gun to his head. 

“Physically, he’s alright so far.” Maria spoke from the side, crossing her arms in front of her chest and giving a warning glare towards Evelyn. “Bruises and abrasions only. He insisted to call you, Ellie, and your forensics department, so we let him.” Ellie suppressed a grin. As if they’d have had a choice when Hardy set his mind to something.

He coughed and made a motion with his hand. “Yes, yes. Now, Llewellyn, will you get on with it? It’s getting cold.” He slipped from his perch on the table and Ellie pretended not to have seen the slight wobble. Evelyn unpacked her camera and checked it over and when she was done, Hardy took off his gown and stood bare except for his underpants in the stark white hospital room and let her take picture after picture of every inch of skin that had writing or drawings on it. 

And that meant _every_ inch of skin, because his chest and back and thighs and truly everything was covered. It would have taken at least an hour, probably more to write all that, and certainly more than one marker and there was no chance that Hardy would have stood still to be drawn on like this.

With Evelyn walking around him carefully and Hardy staring at the blank wall with a perpetual frown on his face, he looked oddly vulnerable and small despite being taller than anyone in the room. Ellie couldn’t see any obvious injuries but there was so much ink on him, it could have been underneath. In fact, he could be black and blue and it would be nearly invisible if you weren’t as close as Evelyn. 

Looking around the room, Ellie noticed Hardy’s clothing packed in evidence-bags, and it was like a bucket of cold water in her face. This was a crime-scene. Her boss – her friend! – was walking evidence, and if the way he stood and clenched his jaw was an indication, he was close to snapping. 

Right. Victim. But he was Hardy, so she could hardly speak to him like she would usually do with a person in similar state. Could she?

“Stop it, Miller,” he muttered and she had to supress a grin. 

“Wasn’t going to say anything, Sir. So – can you tell me what happened?” She smiled brightly and took out her notebook. “Who did this to you?”

“I don’t know. Can’t remember.” He was still calmly detached but there seemed to be a bit of relief in his voice now that he had a distraction. At his words, Ellie shot a look towards Maria, already opening her mouth but before she could speak, Maria held up a vial of blood and a neutral, white container that would hold a urine sample. 

“First thing we did. This is for your lab; one more is already downstairs in ours to check for drugs.”

“Right. Good,” Ellie smiled and turned back to Hardy. He was back to sitting on the table while Evelyn was going through his hair with a fine-toothed comb. Ellie knew she would go through his chest-hair and beard as well, and again this process could have looked funny if it hadn’t been so deeply troubling and hammered home the fact that someone had done this to him with clearly malicious intent. “So, what do you remember? What is the last thing you can recall?”

Hardy took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling. “I remember leaving work yesterday. You said something about Fred and Oliver and your sister, I forgot what that was because I stopped listening at the name ‘Oliver’. Uh, I went to pick up Daisy –“ he froze and stared at her, looking suddenly scared and hurt. “Oh God, where…”

“She’s fine.” Ellie hurried to assure. “I saw her at school when I dropped off Tom today. She waved and smiled – she’s fine. I promise. Do you want me to call the school so she can come here?” 

He huffed and winced when the comb snagged in a tangle. “What good would that do? No, if she’s fine… if you’re sure?” Ellie knew how he felt, she so absolutely knew it that she was dialling before he’d even finished speaking. 

“Beth? Hey, sorry to bother you. I was just wondering: when you brought Chloe to school today, did you take Daisy with you again? You did? And she was fine, right? Yes, no, of course – everything’s okay, don’t worry. I’m sorry – no, I’m sorry.” Ellie cringed. Calling _Beth_ of all people had probably been a mistake. Way to go, call the woman who’d already lost a child and ask if she’d seen another child! “No, I promise, I just wanted to know if… Yes” She cringed towards Hardy for the lie she was going to tell. “Yes, he forgot she slept at your place. Was a bit worried. Ha! Yes. Sorry, gotta go… Later. Yes, I’ll see you later. Bye.” She hung up quicker than was strictly polite, but then again, the whole thing had been less than polite to begin with. Apologetically, she looked back at her boss to see the relief on his face. “Sorry, I thought that was quicker and less worrying for Daisy than calling school and letting them check. Didn’t really think that through…”

“She’ll get over it,” Hardy grunted. “I’ll bring her a fruit basket. And I did forget that Daise went to sleep over, so… We done yet, Llewellyn?” 

“Not quite, Sir.” She was working with tweezers and one of those goggle-glasses with the magnifying lenses. “We’ll do the wrists first so you can keep talking.” 

Ellie took a quick glance at his hands. Where she’d thought was mud, dirt and ink she now saw already-purpling ligature-marks around both wrists. They weren’t openly bleeding but clearly raw and at some places, the skin had been rubbed off. Jesus _Christ_!

“Well, so,” she carried on with forced chirp in her voice while Evelyn carefully took Hardy’s right hand and cleaned underneath the nails. “You picked up Daisy. Anything else?” 

“Uhm…” He was distracted by Evelyn’s work, maybe perturbed by her gentleness or possibly just perturbed in general. Smiling, Evelyn picked up the tweezers again and started to check the wounds on his wrist. “We went shopping.” 

“Where? What did you buy?”

“Tesco’s. Vegetables, milk-“

“What vegetables.” Ellie wasn’t trying to be rude. It would not be truly important what kind of things he’d bought but the more detail he remembered the higher the chances he might remember what had actually happened to him. 

“Agh. Peppers and garlic and a cucumber – bloody expensive, that thing – and uh, what’s it called, the green one that looks like cucumber but tastes like wet cement?”

“Zucchini?” 

“Right. That one. We got tomato-sauce and basil and Daisy got one of those awful chilled coffee-drinks. Oh, bread. And pasta. If you need the whole list, the receipt should be in my wallet.” 

“That’s fine. Now – what happened then?”

“We went home, cooked. Daisy went over to the Latimers and left me with the cleaning again,” he grouched. “Fed Ellie and the Gang. Went inside, watched some documentary about whales.” He stopped. Stared grouchily at the wall, then broodingly at the ceiling until he finally met her eyes with a big frown. “That’s it. The rest is blank.”

Ellie looked at her notes then back up at Hardy. There was a moment of very tense but oddly peaceful silence until Evelyn snapped off her glove and smiled at him, friendly and only a bit gently. “Okay, that’s done now. Do you want her to-” Before she could finish her question, Hardy had glared his answer and Maria reacted, closing the privacy-curtain around the little table. For a second, Ellie was puzzled but then she heard the noise of an elastic-band and the snap of the camera and she realized that even while she’d seen him near-naked, she still hadn’t grasped that the ink hadn’t stopped at the edge of his underpants.

Jesus _fucking_ Christ!

Quickly, she rubbed her eyes and face, hard, and wished for a drink. How would she go about this now? How should she treat him? As the… well, victim and subject of her investigation, or as her boss and partner? And as her friend – something she had only recently realized he actually was – should she treat him like she usually did? Snark at him and threaten him with violence? 

Well. For the latter, she would just see what he was most comfortable with. She doubted he would like her fussing about him, but that would remain to be seen. As for the investigation… 

Highly unlikely he would let her do it alone. She’d have to check with Jenkinson to see if he could even be involved without legal issues rearing up. 

“I need a lift,” Hardy grouched at her when he stepped out from behind the curtain, now clad in a jogging-suit sporting the logo of the hospital. On his feet were throwaway-bedroom-slippers, about a size too small.

“I’ll drive you home. Or did you want to go somewhere else?” For a moment, she feared he would demand to go right to work but he glared that idea out of her mind. 

“Where else would I go? I need a shower. You coming, Miller?” He stormed out, leaving the three women in the room to gather their things quickly.

Scrambling her notebook away, Ellie shot Evelyn a look. “Sorry for running now. His stuff’s all there, in the bags – I just bet he did it himself.” 

Maria nodded, her arms once more crossed with a frown on her face as if she could protect her charge, even when he wasn’t in the room anymore. “Yes, he did. Insisted before we even knew what he was talking about or what might have happened. He’d walked right in; Clive Henderson had brought him. Said he’d found him on the road near his farm, a bit wobbly and slightly confused. Drove him here because he couldn’t remember your phone-number and refused to call 999 and Clive was worried he’d had a head-injury. He was soaked and when we finally gathered what he wanted, he remembered your number and called.”

“Anything else I need to know? Medically?”

Maria shook her head. “No. Nothing broken, no sign of concussion, EKG didn’t show anything worrying and there is no evidence of sexual violence or anything similar. He’s just completely covered in that nasty shit. Oh, if you’re driving him, wait a second.” She rummaged in one of the cabinets and came out with a bottle. “It’s specifically for removing permanent marker from skin. Still takes scrubbing, but is much more efficient than soap.” At Ellie’s questioning look, Maria smiled for the first time. “You wouldn’t believe how many stupid people come here with that stuff on sensitive parts of their anatomy. He can keep it; it should be enough. Also, tell him to be careful with taking anything until we know what he’s got in his bloodstream. There is no way he wasn’t drugged – I just hope there’s still traces to be found.” 

Ellie smiled her thanks and left, finding Hardy leaning against her car. He had his hands buried underneath his armpits and seemed to be shivering slightly. Stupid git should have waited inside. 

Then again, Ellie supposed, if she had been in that room for so long, being under such close scrutiny, she would want to run as well. 

“Sorry,” she apologized, preventing a reprimand from him. “But I’ve got a gift for you.” He didn’t say anything but his eyebrows were pretty loud when she handed him the bottle. “It’s a remover for permanent marker. Maria said you wouldn’t need to scrub so hard with this.”

Hardy nodded and slipped into the car. Normally, Ellie would have started to chat and discuss the case with him, but she didn’t think an account of her morning or talking about his was on the agenda before a hot shower. 

It wasn’t fussing if she wasn’t actually doing anything, was it?

O o o o O O o o o O

He could feel her thinking. Miller was usually good with audible thinking; had she now crossed over into psychic transference of thought? Maybe whatever was in his bloodstream had caused some secret, so-far unused place in his brain to become active and suddenly he would be able to receive brain-waves from other people?

 _Stop it_ , he scowled at his brain. Since he’d come to, it had been going and going in endless loops of insane and illogical thoughts. He’d had to concentrate hard to keep his wits from flying off into Nevernever-Land while Miller had tried to get some answers out of him. They had been fluttering above him like the pigeon from the morning – had it even been a pigeon? Maybe it had been a crow? But it had only been one – not a murder of crows. Funny… what if Desmond Kaine had killed crows – would his deeds been then called murder of crows, or murder of murder of crows? 

For God’s sake, he was doing it again! And to top it all off, his arms and shoulders were starting to hurt as if he’d been to the gym the night before. 

Had he been to the gym? Hardly in these trousers, he’d think, but… 

Did Broadchurch even have a gym?

“How’s Tom,” he gritted out, desperate to keep his thoughts somehow on track. 

Miller startled but gave a quick smile while she navigated the narrow streets. “Oh, he’s doing better. Talks to his therapist and not to me, but I was told that’s probably best.” She chuckled but it lacked humour. “But he talks to me about school and other things. Still won’t get his cell-phone back until at least April, so maybe that’s the real reason behind him being so nice. Maybe he thinks I’ll give in if he’s being extra-good.”

“Never works,” he put in. “Tried that – never did any good.”

“You mean when you were a kid?”

Hardy frowned. “No, when I’m talking to the bloody chicken – what did you think, Miller?”

“Well, for all I know you could have tried it with your wife,” she snapped back, “Would explain why she’s still so cross with you even years later!” He saw her cringe. “Sorry.” 

It made him chuckle. Her flying off at him was oddly soothing. Her being nice beyond their usually roles in their friendship – partnership – would have made him feel itchy in his skin.

Itchier than he felt right now anyway. “God, can’t you sit still like an adult? Why’re you shifting around the whole time?”

“It’s itchy,” he gritted out. “Either the dirt or the fingerprint-powder or the ink. Agh! Driving me nuts!”

“Well, we’re nearly there. I’m not stopping to scratch your arse.” Again, her eyes shot wide open but apart from biting her lip, she didn’t apologize. Hardy hid his smile.

She turned around the bend to his house and expertly avoided her feathered namesake who once again had escaped her pen. Well, good for her. Hardy would not go out to chase the stupid thing back inside. It was Daisy’s chicken; she could bloody well take better care of it if she wanted it to remain alive.

Miller had hardly stopped the car before he was out, the ugly slippers wet and cold from waiting in the hospital car-park and he quickly stepped to his porch. 

“Shit,” he cursed, but before he could work himself in a state, Miller held up the clear evidence-bag with his house-keys. She used them – with gloves – to open the door and he hurried inside and went straight to the bathroom. He could have told Miller to take a look around if anyone had been here or if maybe _he_ had been here before he’d been dumped on Harrington’s field, but there were much more urgent matters. Miller would be fine – she was good at her job and she knew his house quite well, so the only thing he did was mutter “Shower” before he slammed the bathroom-door and leaned against it, trying to remain sane. 

Mechanically, he took off the ugly slippers and the training-jacket, avoiding the mirror deliberately and meticulously. His head still felt like it was full of cotton-wool and his fingers, he noticed, were starting to tremble. 

Hardy managed to switch on the water and let it heat up while he sat on the closed toilet-lid to remove the trousers. Everything he’d worn was now bagged and would be gone through… Maybe this would be easily solved, whoever’d done this to him made a mistake and everything would be resolved in the next two days. 

He highly doubted it, though. 

His hands continued to tremble but he managed to step into the spray and when it hit him, he wanted nothing more than to melt and slip down the drain with all the mud and dirt that was running off his body in rivulets. He stood under the water for what felt like forever, shivering and shaking and giving in to the demands of a little personal breakdown.

Surely, he deserved it. 

After his hands had returned to working-order, he started on the ink-removal. Miller had been right – the ink still needed a brush to get off completely, but it was fairly quick. Well… not the removal-process as a whole. That was anything but quick. 

There was so fucking _much_ of it, everywhere! Even underneath his armpits had someone drawn something – probably a cock but he couldn’t see – and between his toes and the back of his knees. While those were a bit sensitive, they could be scrubbed. 

His dick was another matter. He bit in the web between his thumb and index-finger to stop himself from swearing loudly or possibly screaming when he finally dared a look down and it was just as bad as he’d imagined. 

Goddammit, someone must have taken immense pleasure in writing and drawing on his penis and testicles and on the inside of his thighs, and the sudden confirmation that he’d been completely naked, completely exposed, drugged and bound and held down while one or two or more people had sat there and painstakingly used marker over marker to write insults on his skin, taking his privates in their hand to draw on them hit him like a ton of bricks.

O o o O O o o o O

Curiously detached, he watched his bile wash down the drain. ‘At least I now know I haven’t eaten anything for quite a while’, he thought while the water continued to pound on his back. ‘Good thing we have this great water-heating-system, doing this in a cold shower would have sucked.’

When his mind finally came back from where it had been hiding, he gargled with the spray from the shower and continued his cleaning-process. Left leg, back and front; scrub, rinse and repeat. Right leg, back and front; scrub, rinse and repeat. Feet. Toes. Left arm, front and as far of the back as he could reach. Right arm – same. Chest. Privates. Privates again. Once more, for good measure. 

_Stop it_ , he cursed at himself and forced his hands upwards underneath his arms and into his hair, concentrating on that for now. No amount of washing would help feeling like this, and he’d only scrub his skin raw and wouldn’t be able to sit comfortably for a while. He’d rather avoid that. 

Hardy reached for his usual shampoo but stopped himself at the last moment, choosing the passion-fruit-scented one from Daisy instead. While he was soaping up his hair, he pressed against a spot behind his ear and cursed loudly. 

Carefully, he repeated it and yah, that was indeed a bump. _Clue_ his brain insisted but he refused to leave the warmth of the shower and the fruity smell of his daughter’s shampoo just yet. He could probably use her vanilla-scented soap, too. The ink-remover was good but smelled very chemical. Like a hospital.


	3. Chapter 3

While Hardy was in the shower, Ellie took the time to snoop. He hadn’t said she could, but he would have, she was sure. After all, there was no-one better at inappropriate snooping than him and he’d understand. 

The living-room was tidy. It looked like he’d been reading a book on the couch last evening. A paperback was lying open and face-down on the side-table and she took a closer look, smiling when she saw that it was Bill Bryson’s ‘Short History of Nearly Everything’. Ellie had given it to him at Christmas, surprising the hell out of him that he got a present at all. 

She’d said it was for his holiday so he wouldn’t get traumatized by Goofy and Mickey and could hide himself away in the hotel. It had been half true – she’d just wanted him to read it because she’d enjoyed it a lot herself and it seemed the best way to make him. 

Something was missing… Biting her lips, Ellie took a careful look around the table and couch, searching for his glasses. They hadn’t been with his clothes from last night – where were they? If he’d been reading, they must have been at hand. When they didn’t appear either on nor under the furniture in the living-room, she wandered into the kitchen. 

“Bingo,” she murmured when she spotted them on the counter by the kettle. A mug sat next to them, empty but used. The kettle was full and a new box of teabags sat on the shelf over the sink, so why hadn’t he made his tea if that’s obviously what he’d been planning?

A sudden idea struck her and she opened the fridge. Juice, an energy-drink – probably Daisy’s – jam, butter, marge, a container filled with – yupp, leftovers. Beer – hah, so he did drink beer! – and some assorted sauces and dips and other things one desperately needed when there was a teenager living in your house. Surprisingly, there was a lot of chocolate on one of the shelves. Chocolate in the fridge?

No milk.

“He did say he bought milk, didn’t he?” she wondered out loud and checked her notes. Yes, there it was, on the list. “Gotcha,” she smiled and squeaked in terror when his voice answered from the door. 

“What’ve you got?” 

“Bloody hell, are you trying to kill me, you tosser?” Her heart was racing and Ellie tried to press it back into normal behaviour with a fist against her chest.

“That’s my whole reason for being, yes. Wha’ ‘ve you got?”

She took him in, muzzy from the shower and loose-limbed with a pair of sturdy but soft-looking corduroys and a simple T-shirt, his hair still damp and uncombed as if he’d just finished towelling it. On his feet were brightly-striped woollen socks, which explained his ability to sneak up on her so silently. At her pointed look at the very unusual sight of _colour_ on him, he scowled.

“Shut up. They’re from Daisy.” 

“They suit you.” Ellie grinned. “Did I tell you that I’m a fantastic knitter?” She waggled her eyebrows and snickered at his increased scowl. “But – to get back to the point. It looks like you didn’t buy milk.” She pointed towards the milk-less fridge. “It would seem that you went out again to get some.”

“Huh,” he grunted and took a look himself, as if she weren’t genetically better equipped to find fridge-content than him. Or any man, for that matter. Joe had alw… no. Not thinking about him. “Looks like it.”

“Do you remember that?”

Hardy pulled up a chair and sat down with his elbows on the table. His hands, now clean but slightly red from the water and probably the scrubbing, swept through his hair. He looked strangely like a little boy, big-eyed and spiky-haired and a bit lost. Ellie swallowed a lump of affection and forced herself to stop thinking about pulling her prickly boss into a hug. 

“No,” he sighed. “But maybe I remember finding out that I forgot it? It’s vague, though, so I’m not sure it’s memory or imagination.” He rubbed his forehead with both hands. “God, I hate this,” he growled. “It’s like my head is full of feathers, there’s just some… like a sticky pile of candyfloss that prevents me from finding what I remember. Agh!”

Frustrated, he let his hands fall onto the table and stared at them as if they were not attached to him. “Don’t try to force it,” Ellie advised and got a glare as payment.

“I know how this works!” he gritted out.

She glared back. “Well, then _act_ on that knowledge!” And while he did look exceptionally pitiful, she refused to apologize and continued to investigate the kitchen. 

“I think someone knocked me out,” he suddenly said and Ellie turned sharply. His hand was worrying on a point at his head. “There’s a lump I don’t remember getting. Can you check?”

Ellie stepped behind him, deliberately stamping her feet so he wouldn’t startle – it wasn’t fussing if it made sense! – and carefully parted the hair where he indicated. “Wow, you’ve got a lot of hair,” she muttered and felt him chuckle silently. “No, seriously – that’s enviable. Ah, I see it – ouch,” she winced. “That’s a bump, indeed.” It was smaller than a chicken-egg but definitely visibly red, turning purple. The placement, slightly behind and above his ear, suggested that it hadn’t come from hitting his head by himself, at least not without some serious acrobatics. She took out her phone and took a few pictures, as many as she could so maybe one or two would be viable. “How didn’t you notice that before?”

“Doesn’t hurt when I don’t press on it – ouch! Miller!”

“Sorry, sorry. I didn’t even press hard! God, you’re sensitive.” He scowled at her. 

She stepped back from him and thought about ways to convince him that she should stay until Daisy came home. Maybe she should go fetch her so Daisy wouldn’t walk in on her strangely vulnerable and completely irritating father without some kind of warning? But before she could speak, he hmm’d and hawww’d and clearly forced himself until he finally came out with it and asked her directly. 

“Could you maybe…” He winced, “maybe clean my back?” His voice dropped so low, Ellie had to listen hard to understand, but when she did, her eyes shot wide open. To call it ‘unexpected’ would be a gross understatement! “I would do it myself but I can’t reach,” he hurried to explain, “and the only other person would be Daisy and …”

“No, no – I mean yes, of course! I… uhm. Here? At the table?”

Hardy nodded and tried to avoid her gaze, clearly very uncomfortable with needing help. Ellie rolled her eyes. Men! 

“Good. I’ll get a towel and the uhm, soupy stuff.” She hurried to the bathroom, which was filled with warm mist from the shower. Even the mirror was still fogged over; that would explain the uncombed hair. Ellie opened the small window to let some of the steam out lest something started to get mouldy and grabbed a flannel and a few fresh towels from the cupboard. The bottle of soup-thing was still on the shelf by the sink, as was a small hand-brush. Definitely not thinking about someone trying to clean their own back and shoulder at a small sink, alone, Ellie hurried back out, remembering to make some senseless noises. “Should I make a cuppa? Guess it’ll have to be without milk, though, but I’d really like one myself now. Is it okay if I put on the kettle?”

Harrumphing, Hardy waved a hand at her, still at the table. She supposed that could be interpreted as a ‘Yes Ellie, thank you. Go ahead, that would be nice’ and started the water, took out two clean mugs and dumped the teabags inside. 

When she shot him a quick glance, she noticed his hands opening and closing forcefully, like he was squeezing an invisible rubber-ball into submission. Or maybe he was trying to stop them from trembling. Men. So irritatingly reluctant to show when things got to them. Being a woman in a men’s world was tough shit and she’d had to fight hard to get where she was. And now, with Hardy as her superior, she seemed to have hit the ceiling, professionally, since there was only one DI-position in Wessex area and wasn’t that a joke that she could only get there if he left and she didn’t really want him to leave anymore? But that aside, she thought, at least nobody looked at her funny when she broke down. Well – outside of the job, that was. At work, everyone assumed that tears meant she wasn’t capable and needed coddling. 

Fucking hell, she didn’t! But sometimes, you just needed to cry to get back into the saddle, and so many men refused to do that, even in private, for fear of losing… what, exactly? ‘Bloke-points’ or something? Couldn’t be easy, always pretending to be alright when they very clearly weren’t and did have very good reasons for it.

Still – no fussing. She’d promised. So with a bright smile that Hardy didn’t see, she put the filled mugs and the towel on the table and stepped behind her boss once more. “I suggest you pull off your shirt, Sir. Soap works better that way.” Ellie knew she was babbling, probably overcompensating but didn’t care. She refused to do this with only silent brooding in the room. 

Quickly, as if he wanted to get things over with – reasonable – he pulled off his shirt. Good thing he couldn’t see her, because Ellie wasn’t able to stop baring her teeth in sympathy and anger. But something must have tipped her off, because he asked, slightly amused “That bad?”

She took his cue and replied flippantly. “I’d say as colourful as your socks. But a bit repetitive, if you ask me. Not much variance. Clearly not a poet or a writer, I’d say.” 

It earned her a small smile. She could just about see it from her place behind him. “Okay then, let’s get you back to PG.” This one got her a snort and he grabbed the mug and took out his teabag, then removed the other one from her own tea as well. 

“That would be a first. So – what’s Oliver doing back here?”

His deflection from the topic at hand was obvious, and Ellie took it gladly. It gave her something inane to chat about without having to focus on wording and tiptoeing without seeming to coddle. It was Hardy. He didn’t need coddling. 

Except maybe, in this particular case, he did. 

Chattering on about Lucy and Olly and going from there to her dad and his infuriating view of the world and who had finally found a good, small flat close by so he wouldn’t have to live with her anymore, the Sharpie-removal wasn’t really that hard. It took a bit of rubbing and scrubbing here and there and she felt him tense when she touched areas that were clearly going to bruise soon, but all in all, he was a good patient. Better, definitely, than Fred at bath-time.

“Thanks a lot, I guess?” 

Oops – had she said that out loud? “Sorry, Sir.” 

“No, no. I’m glad I’m better behaved than Fred. I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“Well, you should.” She scrubbed at the ‘fuckwit’, thinking about leaving that one. “It’s not my usual verdict.” His shoulders shook and Ellie felt herself smile. Funnily, this wasn’t as awkward as she’d thought it would be. After the first tense minutes where she thought he might break a bone from the tension in his muscles, he’d noticeably calmed and while he wasn’t what she’d call ‘relaxed’, he was clearly getting there. 

He sighed and scrubbed at his hair – this way, it would probably stay sticky-uppy forever. “So, assuming I went out to get milk…”

“Yes, let’s assume that. We’ll check it on your receipt, if you really have it.”

“…get milk, and if I went back to Tesco’s, there should be CCTV.”

“Right. I’ll get on that the moment this is done.”

“You could do it now. Can’t be that much left?”

Frowning, Ellie took in what remained of his colourful – figuratively – decorations. “There’s one ‘cocksucker’, one ‘ugly cozzer’ and one ‘die, stupid pig’ still left. You wanna keep them?”

He made a face. “Got your point. Fine, go on.”

“Can’t be more than ten, maybe twenty minutes. You can use that to think about who might want to do that to you.”

She heard him grit his teeth before he growled, frustrated. “I’ve been trying to make a list since I woke up.”

“What, that many?” 

A bitter chuckle. “No, not really. I don’t think I’ve made real enemies. A few years ago, I’d have said Lee Ashworth. But he’s in prison – well, he should be at least, might check – and I don’t think he’s truly vindictive and, more importantly, patient enough for this.”

“Hmmm. What about Claire?” 

He raised his eyebrows. “Also still in prison. It would suit her more than Lee, so… definitive maybe.”

“Well, we’ll be checking her out either way. What… uh, what about … Joe?” Ellie continued the cleaning and maybe she rubbed a bit too hard. He hissed.

“Oi, Miller, leave some skin, will you?” 

“Sorry, _Fred_.” But she kept her touch gentler. “So?”

“Joe… I don’t think so. I didn’t do anything to him. He knows what happened, so all that shite from the trial shouldn’t affect his actions. Well… at least not if he didn’t convince himself that we had an affair.”

Ellie snorted. “Hardly. He knows what I thought about you.” But maybe he thought that if _he_ had such a bad secret, his wife might have one as well? 

“Oh? And what was that?”

She grinned. “You know full well, Sir. I never kept it to myself. But,” she continued after a pause, “you don’t think he blames you for everything?”

Nibbling distractedly on the flesh of his thumb, Hardy shook his head. “I suppose we’d have to check, but again – not his style. Beat me up or something – maybe. But this?”

Yeah. That was the kicker. Hardy might be real wanker at times and bloody irritating on his better days but he was not someone who created enemies that would be patient and deliberate enough for this level of nastiness. Whoever had done this had wanted to humiliate and … and what? They didn’t hurt him apart from bruises and the bump and his wrists, and they clearly could have. They had him at their mercy and all they did was paint on him? 

That was weird. And it felt strangely… female. 

“Yeah, well, we’ll check everyone. What about women?”

“Hm? What women?”

“Well, how should I know? A woman you had sex with, or one who wanted you to but you didn’t?”

“Ugh. I would have to go back quite a long time for that. Was married to Tess for over twelve years, and before you ask – no, I never cheated or thought about it.” He scratched his beard. 

“Well, still leaves the scorned ones. Any you can think of?”

“Uhm. No. Not to my knowledge.”

“Hm, but you can be quite dense. I’ll ask Tess.” She’d have to talk to her anyway. ‘Don’t trust’, he’d taught her. That included ex-wives who might feel that their ex-husbands had stolen their daughter. Ellie grabbed the towel and slapped it carelessly over his shoulder. “That’s it. All done, clean as before.” He had a lot of freckles on his skin. In summer, Hardy probably burned like a lobster. “I’ll clean up, you get your shirt back on. And while you’re standing, I’d like another cuppa.”

Quickly, she gathered all she’d used and just dumped it in the bathroom, thinking he could just clean it up himself. But she hadn’t even taken one step out before she huffed and walked back in, putting the towel and flannel into the hamper, the brush on the sink and the soap-thing on the shelf, then rummaged until she found his first-aid stash. Bloody hell, curse her sense of order and cleanliness, but she even closed the window again so nobody would freeze when they walked in here. 

“Arms out,” she ordered once she was back in the kitchen. This time, she’d forgotten to make noise and Hardy startled, spilling hot water over his hand. He hissed and glared at her. His head really must be full of candyfloss to forget she was there. 

“What?” he asked when she made moving motions towards his hands. “What for?”

“Wrists. Don’t be an idiot about it, Sir, it won’t do you any good.”

Grumbling, he held out his right hand. “I can do the left myself.”

“Bloody hell you can.” Ellie sat at the table. “Sit down.”

He did and let her reach over so she could turn the arm first left, then right. “Doesn’t look too bad,” she lied. It looked awful. Not as an injury – as wounds would go, it truly wasn’t bad. She counted three lines spaced more or less equally, starting right where the hand joined the two bones of the arm and going over that funny bump, the last one stopping right behind said bump. They were already purpling and while there was no open wound, the implications behind it made her insides scream in fury on his behalf. He’d _fought_! Someone had tied him down and held him there and he’d fought until whatever they used to bind him with dug deep into his wrists and pressed blood-vessels and skin together so it would definitely leave a scar, even without blood. 

As a teenager, she’d once gotten her arm inside a scared dog’s mouth and it had bit her without breaking the skin. Even so many years later, she could see where its teeth had been. 

“Right,” he muttered and Ellie snapped back to the task at hand. 

“Well, at least I don’t need any disinfectant. What about the other?” That one looked worse. The rope – cloth? Whatever it was had been about finger-wide and tough – had slipped up and down his wrist and instead of clear lines, it looked like his whole lower arm would be turning blue. To make matters more interesting, there were abrasions where the skin had been rubbed raw. She’d seen it in the hospital, but up close and in the quiet, warm and safe space of his kitchen, it looked a lot more menacing. 

With an apologetic smile, she used the disinfectant and wrapped gauze around the wrist, making sure it was as loose as possible so it wouldn’t bother him to feel something there. It wasn’t fussing if he didn’t notice. 

“See? All done.” 

“Good.” Hardy cleared his throat and smiled a small, grateful smile. That alone would have tipped her off that he was far from okay. “Thanks. Can I get a ride with you? I guess my car will be wherever I went to last night.”

“What? Where do you think you’re going?”

“Well, to work?”

“Fuck no, you won’t!”

“Miller…”

“No. NO! Apart from the fact that you wouldn’t be any use, you just … you’ve been kidnapped-“ he groaned in denial but she talked right over him, “- yes, kidnapped! Or abducted, if that’s better for your macho-sensitivities! And you’ve been who-knows-where and you’ve been… drugged! And no. No, I’m not taking you to the station today.” 

Ellie crossed her arms and glared at him but quickly, her anger evaporated. “Not today. I’m going to need your statement, so you can come by tomorrow. Daisy will be here soon anyway, so do something nice with her today and” _try to sleep, get some rest, get better so you can be my stubborn, irritating boss again…_ “start on building that chicken-pen, for example. Or finish the book.”

Fighting every urge inside her that wanted to hug him until everything was better – bloody hell, what a thought! – Ellie stood and pulled her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll go now, write my report. See what SOCO can say by now. The minute I know what you were drugged with, I’ll let you know.” She didn’t think he would take painkillers or something to calm down, but at least it would be an option then. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to. You’re not a taxi.”

“I know. But I want to, so deal with it.” Ellie walked to the door and through the window, she could see Beth’s car pull up next to hers. “Daisy’s here.” 

Hardy stood in the doorway, still strangely soft-looking and he even smiled at her. “Thank you,” he said – twice in not even ten minutes, wow. “I… thanks.” She gave him a closed-lipped smile of her own and felt something sting behind her eyes. “Aww, Miller… Don’t get mushy, I’m fine.”

“Of course you are,” she shot back, but it lacked effort. “You always are, right? I’ll pick you up before eight.”

As she trudged to her car, she made sure that her mussed-up feelings weren’t visible so Daisy wouldn’t be too worried. If and when Hardy would tell his daughter about it was truly not her business. While she thought it would be best to tell her soon, she’d be spitting mad if, with her in his place, someone would tell _her_ kids before she was ready herself. 

“Hey Mrs Miller,” Daisy greeted, still refusing to call her Ellie. Maybe it was because of her chicken, but Ellie suspected it had more to do with her being a Hardy. She smiled and walked by, murmured something about ‘work’ so she didn’t have to stay and chat and accidentally let something slip. 

It was two-thirty. It felt like midnight.


	4. Chapter 4

“Dad?” Daisy looked slightly puzzled, probably wondering why he was here in the middle of the day. Quickly, though, her gaze fell on his bare arms and he forced himself to remain as he was even if his instincts were screaming at him to hide the marks on his wrists.

Why should he? He had done nothing wrong.

Well… as far as he knew. 

Daisy had always been a smart girl, and something worrying must have added up in her mind because she stopped herself from touching him even if it was obvious that she wanted to. “Dad! What happened?” 

It was very considerate and heartbreakingly aware that she kept her distance, but it was the opposite of what Hardy wanted right now. So he gathered her in his arms and hugged her, maybe a bit tighter than usual. “I don’t know,” he said into her hair.

Daisy stepped away and frowned at him, then put her hands on her hips and gave him a very good impression of her mother. “Don’t lie to me. I’m not a baby, I can see something happened!”

“I know you do, and I still don’t know.” He turned and went back into the house. Things were getting awkward and he didn’t know how to stop it. It was Daisy, and she was seventeen and clever, but she was still very much his little girl and the last thing he wanted to do was worry her. 

Not telling her why he had a bandage on one and openly visible rope-marks on the other arm would probably not stop her from fretting, though. “I really don’t know. You want something to eat? We have some of the stuff from yesterday…”

“No,” she followed quickly and closed the door behind her, then stepped around him to stand in his way. “I bloody well don’t want to eat! Dad! What…” her voice cracked and he looked up sharply only to see her try to hide her tears. Oh hell, no. 

“Well, I’m hungry.” Maybe he actually was. He wasn’t quite sure. But it might help against the wool in his head. “So sit down, I’ll tell you what I know.”

O o o o O O o o o O

He hadn’t known his kitchen-clock was so annoying. It was really loud – had it always been this loud? It had first come to his notice when Miller had been here, rubbing at his shoulders and back and along his spine and he’d felt like running as far away as possible or hiding under his bed like a scared cat and at the same time cursing himself for even having such illogical thoughts.

Daisy stood at the counter, her arms crossed in front of her like she wanted to hug herself, or keep her insides from spilling out. Hardy bared his teeth. Bad image.

“If… you mean if I’d been here yesterday-“ 

“Oh no,” he hurried, “don’t start the ‘what-if’-game, darling. Believe me, it will only tear you down. I’ve done it enough myself.”

“But… I might have gone with you to get the milk!” 

Hardy stared at his daughter as if she were a strange new alien from a far-away planet. “Do you really think I’d have preferred _that_?” he asked and reluctantly, Daisy shook her head. “Good. Look… I can’t claim that I’m fine.” He wanted to, but it would be a very bad lie. “But I’m… not really hurt? A bit achy here and there and I feel incredibly slow-brained-“ she gave a choked chuckle. It was just enough to make him feel better. “But really, I’m not hurt. All they did was paint on me and write profanities. It’s not really something I’d want to repeat, but it’s not really bad, is it? I have been called a lot of names in my time with the police. I doubt there was anything I haven’t heard yet.”

“Yeah… maybe.” She looked incredibly young. He could see she was trying to be tough and strong but the way she bit the flesh of her thumb made her look all of thirteen. Something shifted inside him. He’d been worried and a bit flaky all day, walking on clouds, possibly in shock. But seeing his daughter look so scared – for _him_ \- sharpened his thoughts and cleared his mind a bit. 

No, he wasn’t scared! He wasn’t going to crawl into his bed and sleep, hoping this would all be a strange dream and tomorrow everything would be perfectly normal again. No, he was _angry_! Someone had knocked him out and put him down into the dirt, undressed him and drew crude words on him for a _reason_ , and he would be damned if he would give whoever it had been the satisfaction of putting him down for good! 

And he would not sit at home and gnaw on his thumb and let someone else puzzle this one out and make his little girl worry for him, he’d bloody well go and do it himself! Well – probably tagging along with Miller, since there was little chance Elaine would let him lead the case himself. She _would_ let him participate. He’d make sure of that. 

He rose from the chair and tugged Daisy into his arms, letting her sob a little into his t-shirt. To say he wasn’t worried would be an understatement, but right now, anger was winning. “Shh, it’s okay. I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, okay?” Daisy nodded, still buried against his chest. “Let’s use the day for something better than worrying, yeah? How about we finally finish the pen for the chickens? Ellie got out again. I swear, that is not a chicken, it’s bloody re-born Houdini.”

“Hendini?” Daisy giggled and he chuckled. “Yeah, okay. Let me change first, okay?”

O o o o O O o o o O

After he and Daisy had finished the very luxurious chicken-coop, they’d ordered pizza and rock-paper-scissor-ed for a Netflix-movie. Daisy had won but he knew she’d chosen something he really liked. She shouldn’t have bothered – he’d fallen asleep twice and startled awake to her worried gaze and the plot had gone right over his head the moment the movie had started. After the third time nodding off, he’d gone to bed to sleep but the night had been fitful and restless as his brain seemed to have decided it needed to catch up with things now when it had been offline for so long. He’d resigned himself to a complete waste of effort until, sometime around two, Daisy had crawled into bed beside him without saying a word. When he’d made and inquisitive noise, she’d only glared at him from reddened, tired eyes and snuggled against him like she used to do when she’d been little.

Surprisingly, he’d fallen asleep right away and slept until Ellie pecked on his bedroom-window. Which was far away from the coop. “That’s it,” he growled into his pillow. “That bloody bird goes into the oven for Easter.”

“Shut up, Dad. I know you love her.”

When Miller arrived at eight – of course she would be late – Daisy was writing a list of suspects on a sheet of paper. “What about the chicken-killer? You did catch him, and he’s a sick fuck.”

“Language.” Hardy sipped his tea, watching Miller step through their sliding door. “And he’s in prison.”

“Actually,” Miller interrupted, “he’s not. They let him out on bail. But he’s got an ankle-tag so we know he wasn’t anywhere near Broadchurch. Good thinking, though, Daisy.” The look she shot him clearly stated that she was not only surprised that his daughter was writing down suspects for attacking her father but also that Miller was clearly not on board with that idea.

Well, she could get in line. It hadn’t been _his_ idea but a determined Daisy was a Daisy better not crossed. “Are you still coming to the station, Sir?”

“’course I am. Daise…”

“I know,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m going to school on time, I’ll be home straight away. I won’t be talking to strangers and not take candy from anyone.” She slipped out of her seat and gave him a quick kiss. “I’ll be fine and careful, if you’ll be careful, too. Right?” 

He smiled at her expectant look. “Promise. Miller’ll protect me,” he winked and laughed when Daisy slapped him. He shoved himself away from the kitchen-counter and walked towards the door, expecting Miller to follow along like always.

Which she did. 

“I see you did the sensible thing and involved your teenage daughter in solving a crime against you, Sir. Very smart thinking. Why let the professionals do their job when there’s a teenager around to do it, right?”

“She’s not solving any crime, Miller. She wanted to write a list of suspects because she’s worried and wanted to help.”

Her mouth softened a little and she started the car. “Well, at least I don’t have to pretend nothing happened to you when I’m around her. That’s… surprising.”

“She’s smart.”

“Her mother’s daughter, then,” Miller grinned cheekily, and he glared at her but secretly agreed. Tess and Daisy had so much in common, it was worrying sometimes. 

“You never called me. No result on the blood-test?”

“Ah – no. Nothing conclusive. There were traces of some unknown substance in it, suggesting a high dose of whatever it was. Given the amount of time that’s missing in your memory, most of it must have passed through the system before you got to the hospital. Sir– would you be alright to give your statement today?”

“Course.”

“It’s just – it would be easier if we had it and…”

“I said ‘yes’, didn’t I? I know how this works, Miller.”

“Of course, yes. Uhm… I talked to Jenkinson yesterday. She said you should go to her first thing, then we can do the statement. Uhm…” She stopped talking and glared at the road until something in her snapped and she stopped the car. “This is weird. Sorry, but this is completely strange. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells around you all the time and I don’t know how to behave and what to tell you and what not. You’re my boss, my friend and you’re also the …” there was a pause in which she clearly gathered her resolve to say it, “the _victim_ and I can’t separate everything clearly. So please – tell me how to do this.”

He huffed a laugh. “You think I know that? Thanks for the confidence, but this is a first for me, too.” Resigned to have a heart-to-heart now, he scruffed his hair. “Well, for one – I hate the eggshells. Go on treating me like you usually do and I’ll be fine. I’ll let you know when you stepped wrong. As for the case – try to stop me from being involved, I dare you. I’ll make sure there’ll be no legal problem for any kind of prosecution, because I’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime. But I will be involved. So you should tell me whatever you can. As for being your friend,” he softened a little and gave her a hint of a smile, “I appreciate it.”

Miller glared. “You _appreciate it_? Oh, wow. How very generous of you, Sir!”

“What? What did I do now?”

“One _appreciates_ a cup of tea! Not a friendship!”

“What, you want me to say that you being my friend means a lot to me and that it makes me all fuzzy and warm inside to hear you say it and that I feel the same thing?”

“For example – yes!”

“Well, tough shit, then.” Angrily, he crossed his arms and glared out of the window. Stupid woman. 

After a few minutes of silence, Miller chuckled. 

“What!”

“Sorry. Thank you for appreciating my friendship. I appreciate yours, too.”

Hardy snorted and dragged his hand across his forehead and down his face. “Well, that’s alright then. Can we get going now, or do we need to weave matching bracelets?” 

Laughing out loud, Miller started the car again and drove on towards the station. He hoped she knew what he couldn’t say very well. He’d always been bad at making friends, Tess used to say. Maybe, though, the people he’d call friends never quite realized their status. Miller, however, seemed smart enough to get it.

O o o o O O o o o O

At the station, he made a beeline towards Elaine’s office, ignoring any possibly strange look in his direction. People would know, and people would stare and assess. It was a given and it didn’t matter how uncomfortable that would make him, it was human nature. They’d get over it, and if not … well. He wore a smug smile when he turned the corner that led to the Superintendent’s door. If not, Miller would sort them out.

“Alec,” Elaine said warmly as he stepped inside. “How are you?” Her eyes swept over his body, as he’d known they would. Human nature. Instinct. He gave her a few seconds until he decided enough was enough and sat down at her desk.

“I’m alright so far. Head’s back in the game, at least.” It wasn’t, not quite, but the wool had lifted. “Has Miller given you a report?”

She smiled and leaned against the backrest of her chair. It wasn’t exactly promising but he held her gaze. “She has, yes. She also said that you would want to be involved – is she right?” At his determined nod, she made a face and tugged on her ear. “Well. I checked, and there is no rule that you can’t work with her on this. But you can only assist! It’ll have to be her case, not yours, and if she thinks that you can’t handle it, you’ll leave or do what she deems fit. Is that understood? You’ll also not touch a suspect or interrogate anyone without her or someone of her choosing present. We’ll have to cross every t twice in this, there can be no mistake. You’ve already got a reputation of a bit of a loose cannon – I know that’s not true,” she hurried when he opened his mouth to protest, “but that’s sadly what your stubbornness cost you. Be smart about this, Alec. And trust Miller.”

He nodded, hardly believing his luck. “I do. So … you’ll let me work on this?” 

She gave him a kind nod. “As soon as medical has approved it, you can. Now go get DS Miller; I now have the great pleasure to tell her she’ll be your boss.” Her eyes twinkled and he wondered if maybe he’d actually managed to make more than one friend in this strange little town.

O o o o O O o o o O

Ellie had just finished hissing at her colleagues for being inconsiderate arseholes and brain-damaged, insensitive excuses for human beings when Hardy stepped back into the big room, took one suspicious look around and then nodded for her to go visit Elaine, too. She shot her fri… No, not today, today they would all just be _colleagues_ at best! – a last, hopefully very threatening look and left for Jenkinson’s office.

Still fuming – they’d _giggled_ , for God’s sake! – she packed herself in Elaine’s chair and glared at her as if she were responsible for the lack of decorum and decency in this station. Maybe she was.

“Ah, I take it our staff is not up to your standards today?”

“Just imagine if it had been anyone else,” Ellie spit. “If it had happened to anyone else, to Katie or Bob or … I don’t know, anyone! Would they still behave like a pack of immature school-girls? God!”

“Well, if you look at it objectively…”

Ellie was out of her seat before she realized, leaning over the desk to glare at Elaine. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare say that it’s okay to _laugh_ at him! He’s been _drugged_! Tied up and drugged! And all sorts of things could have happened, and they _laugh_ just because he’s a grumpy arsehole most days of the week. But he’d _never_ laugh at one of them in the situation, he’d move heaven and earth to solve this and make sure none of the others would giggle! Fucking unbelievable that you’d defend them for being so bloody unprofessional and, and… and… horrible!”

Elaine sat still as a stone and let her rant, only raising her right eyebrow when Ellie stopped and started to feel self-conscious. “Are you done?” Ellie nodded and sat back down, hands in her lap. “Well, if you’d have let me finish, I’d have said that if you look at it _objectively_ , they probably don’t realize just how serious this is.” Her eyes were hard and calm, but Ellie could see she was worried. For Hardy, specifically. “And as I’ve just gotten a taste of it, I think you will make certain that even if he’s going to be pricklier than usual, they’ll _understand_. Believe me, I do know exactly how dangerous this was, and how lucky he is that whoever did this didn’t want to cause any actual, physical harm. But this is not a prank. This is an assault against one of my officers, and it doesn’t matter if said officer is a grump or the cheeriest person on the planet. He’s my responsibility and I’m taking this very personal. That’s why I’ve assigned the best Detective I can think of to solve this, and he’ll be allowed to help as long as that’s not causing harm to the case or to himself.” 

Ellie sniffed, slightly taken aback. She’d thought Jenkinson would assign the case to Hardy, but he’d certainly not be in the position to decide whether he’d be causing harm to himself. “Really? Who did you get?”

It was only when Elaine laughed and gave her a significant look that she caught on. “Oh! Oh – you mean me? I’m the lead-officer here?” 

“Of course you are.”

“Right,” she smiled. “Who else would be able to bear that grumpy man at their side, right?”

To her surprise, Elaine lost her smile and shook her head. “That’s not the reason, Ellie. You’re very good at this job. You know what to do and you have the rare ability to be kind and understanding without it clouding your judgement. Am I sorry I went over your head and gave Hardy your job back then? Well – in a way, yes and no. If you’d have been the DI for the Latimer case, I’m not sure where we would be now.” Ellie cringed. She’d often wondered herself and hadn’t yet come to any conclusion. Depending on the sort of day she was having, it varied between ‘No clue about the murder but still happily married’ or ‘in prison for murdering her husband in a fit of rage’. “But ever since then, you’ve proven yourself to be not only resourceful and smart. You’ve always been that, or you would have never been considered in the first place. No, you are a good leader, kind and stern in the right measures. If that grump out there weren’t here, there would be no question who’d be my DI by now. For your career, it’s sad that he actually likes it here, because as much as it pains me for your sake to say it – he’s damn good at his job.” 

Better than herself, Ellie thought. Of course it was wonderful to hear Elaine sing her praise, and years ago she’d have walked out of the office high on a cloud. But since then, she’d been shown her own limits in the most ruthless of ways, and even if Hardy was actively hindering her own promotion just by being here, his presence was oddly soothing. Not… not personally so much. In that regard, the term ‘abrasive’ would be much better. He wasn’t Sherlock Holmes who always knew everything at the glimpse of an eye – in fact in terms of detective-work, she was at least his equal if not better. But she knew he’d always make the hard decisions she would forever want to stall, would step into the shit for all of his detectives and take the blame for them when they fucked up even if he didn’t like them or they giggled behind his back; would give them the opportunities they needed in small and easily handled doses so they’d learn and grow on their own. God, she’d hated him for dropping her in front of the room in the Latimer-case, but looking back, he’d done it so she’d learn how. Could have warned her, the twat, but that was Hardy, after all. He’d yell at them and curse them, be bloody rude to them any given day but was loyal to a fault and he’d _protect_ them, and that’s why she was so bitterly disappointed in the colleagues she usually called her friends. If they hadn’t yet caught on how invaluable his position between them and the world’s shit was, they couldn’t be very good policemen. 

“Of course it’s good that you can work with Alec without killing him,” Elaine continued, not privy to her thoughts, “but if that wouldn’t be the case, I’d just keep him out of your way even if I’d have to tie him to his desk.” She winced. “Sorry. Inappropriate.”

Ellie couldn’t help it, she giggled. “He’d probably appreciate the joke.” Her grin got even bigger when she realized her own, accidental inside- joke but it was only half-as-funny without someone to get it. “Thank you, though. For your confidence. It means a lot.” She choked up a little and tried to hide it. It probably failed, but even years after Joe, she couldn’t quite believe people still trusted her to be a good detective. She knew she was, but it still shocked her when others did, too.

She’d never tell him, but she was certain that Hardy had a big role in that. Without his trust in her and without him giving her the right outlet for her fury over Joe walking off, she’d have probably thrown in the towel by now or kept working as a traffic cop. 

He could never know how much she owed him for that. “Wait.” Ellie snapped back to the conversation she’d been having. “Does that mean I’m his boss now?”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I don't know enough about police-procedures, but I doubt Hardy would be allowed in real life to work on his own case. For the sake of the story - just go with it. :-)_


	5. Chapter 5

When she walked back to Hardy’s office, the big room was suspiciously quiet. She hoped her disappointment had gotten results but right now she was fine with them just shutting up and doing their bloody job. 

“Do you have anything yet from SOCO?” he asked her without missing a beat. Ellie had barely stepped through the doorway. 

“No, we don’t. Evelyn’s thorough, she’ll call when she has something. Did you remember anything else?”

With a huff, Hardy pushed his chair away from his desk and leaned backwards. “No. It’s infuriating; it’s like a big black hole in my brain. And the more I think about it, the more I try to make something up just to fill it. Agh!” He threw his pen down on the papers in disgust.

“Well, I don’t know if that helps but I read up on the kind of drugs that could do this.” She looked him up and down. “I’d say it’d have taken at least an hour, probably two, to write all over you.” 

Hardy wrinkled his nose. “Probably right. Rules out a few of them, that timeframe.”

“Yes. Judging from the legibility of that stuff, you can’t have moved about a lot. Which means this,” she touched her own wrists and was slightly dismayed when he subconsciously mirrored her movement to pull his shirtsleeves further down, “happened either after or before. Which still doesn’t explain why you can’t remember.”

He growled and stood to start pacing the cluttered room. “What about CCTV at the Tesco? Anything?” 

“Orrin is on his way getting them. They get sent off each night to the main branch for security reasons, but they’ll have the records. The receipt – no, you know what? Let’s get your statement before we muddle your memories with established facts. If that’s alright with you, Sir?”

Watching him move like a cornered fox reminded her of the time he’d been barely hanging on, before the pacemaker. Fascinating, how much he’d changed from there, physically. The ‘shitface’ he now got was definitely not due to him looking like shit. Ellie suppressed a smile. Today, though, he looked harrowed and slightly hunted and she felt a wave of protectiveness wash over her that she battled down valiantly. It was of no use here, but she’d keep it in mind for when he was getting on her nerves again. 

“Yah, okay. Good idea.” 

“Did you know?” she chirped, “I get to do that all the time now? Tell you what to do. I’m your boss!”

“No you’re not, Miller.” 

“Oh, but I think I am, _Sir_. If I think your presence in this case will harm you or the case, I can send you away – that makes me very much your boss, I’d say.” She showed him her teeth and he glared. “So behave. Come on, let’s get your statement on tape.”

O o o o O O o o o O

Sadly, all it did was get a lot of ‘I don’t know’ and ‘can’t remember’ on tape. No matter how Miller worded it and asked in roundabout ways, nothing more was coming to the surface. She was doing it well, he realized on a professional level, but that didn’t help him keep the rising frustration at bay. To her credit, she was aware and stopped just before he was ready to snap at her.

“I think that’s enough for now,” she said and turned off the recorder. “Do you want a cuppa?”

“What I want is those hours back,” he snarled, too late to stop sniping. He knew she must be aware of how this affected him but he’d have rather seemed a bit more professional. Despite the earlier teasing, he knew full well that his continued stay on this case depended on her judgement and his ability to remain detached enough to be of help. 

It was bloody hard. Especially since he felt like barfing half the time. 

“I know,” she said, calm and as professional as he’d have liked to be. “But that’s not on the menu today. So – tea. Maybe someone’s found your car yet – it wasn’t at Tesco, so where is it?”

They went back to his office and Miller rustled about until she found a map. “Okay, so – here’s where Harrington picked you up. There…” she set a pin. “We’ll go and have a look later, maybe it jostles something. Here” another pin “is Tesco and here’s your house. If we assume that you didn’t drive to the field yourself, whatever happened must have been between your house and the supermarket.”

“Great. Narrows it down… to pretty much the whole of Broadchurch and half of West Milton. That helps how?”

“What, did you expect to come here and every answer would be staring us in the face?” Miller glared and he blinked.

“No.” Yes. But he’d never admit it because it was stupid. Something lurched inside his stomach. “I think you’ll have to excuse me for a bit.” He left the room swallowing bile, trying to hurry without appearing to do so. God, he felt sick. The whole morning he’d been fine except for a slight disgust for food. But that wasn’t exactly unusual. Now though, he felt like he was coming down from a bender, which he hadn’t even gone on in ages. 

Luckily, he reached the bathroom in time and took maybe-possibly a bit longer afterwards leaning against the comforting cold of the bowl than was strictly necessary. If there had been a lingering hope that puking would restore some memories, it was now gone completely.

His mind remained as blank as before. 

“Sir?” Miller called into the bathroom from the door. “Are…” She stopped herself and Hardy was grateful for both, the stopping and the urge to ask. “Orrin is back with the tapes.”

“I’ll be right out,” he croaked and went to clean his face and spit out the disgusting taste in his mouth. When he got to the office, Miller had a glass of water for him on the desk and a mint. She studiously avoided his eyes but he smiled lopsidedly in thanks anyway and gladly sucked the peppermint before joining her at the screen. 

“So, the receipt says you were at the shop at six-twenty-eight. And by the way, you did buy milk – if it wasn’t there, you left it at the register.”

“Means the cashier might remember me if I came back to get it? We’ll ask her, then.”

“Do we have an estimate on when you went back out?” 

“I remember the whales, so sometime after that started. I can’t remember if I finished it, but it can’t be more than sixty minutes long.”

“Ah, here it is.” Miller was looking through the TV-schedule online. “There was a re-run of ‘Deep Blue’ that night – aww, I love that, pity I missed it. It started at eight and finished at nine-thirty. Let’s start going through the tapes from eight on.”

For a while, they sat in silence in front of their screens. Miller had said she didn’t want another DS or DC yet in on the research, but she’d send them out and check witnesses once they had something to go on. DC Harford had her own missing-person’s case as of today, a tourist from the Holiday Park, and she’d need a few feet to pound the pavement. So for now, it was just the two of them and he was fine with that. 

The cameras at Tesco’s covered most of the parking-lot and the security system filmed each customer as they entered or left. He’d chosen to go over the outside-tapes and Miller had taken the inside ones and while the tea was getting disgusting, not helping the slight nausea still lingering in his stomach, Hardy watched hours speed by on the grainy images with people coming and going and cars leaving. 

“Ah, if someone calls for a hit-and-run against their bumper, it’s at-“ he looked at the time “eight-fifty-six.” Miller grunted and scribbled something on a sheet. 

It was barely nine gone on the screen when he perked up. “Got it.” His car had just turned into the carpark and moved from one camera towards the other. “Nine-o-six.” 

Miller gave a relieved sigh. “Oh good. This is so bloody frustrating watching all those people.” She skipped in the video ahead and then pressed ‘play’ and Hardy walked over to watch over her shoulder. He’d stopped his own feed the moment he saw himself leave the car. 

Now, he saw himself walk beneath the camera, clearly in a hurry and a bit in a huff. “Oooh,” Miller snickered, “someone’s grumpy!” 

He didn’t dignify it with a reply, just watched until just about seven minutes later, the image of himself walked right out, milk in hand. 

They both moved from Miller’s screen to his and skipped to the time he’d left the building, and yupp, there he was, walking to his car. He drove off and left the carpark, and that was it. 

Silently, Hardy leaned back against his chair and let out a breath, deliberately keeping it inaudible. Nothing. There was nothing. He’d come and gone and bought the milk, but there was nothing else that would explain his missing memories or the state of his skin. He felt rather than saw Miller glance furtively over until he was ready to snap at her. 

It wasn’t her fault, though, so he swallowed it back down. 

“Well,” she said, trying for hopeful but missing the target, “we might still see if someone was following you. Let’s go over it again. At least we now don’t have to search through the whole tape.”

Grunting, Hardy bent his head over the table, interlacing his fingers behind his neck to stretch out the muscles there. He felt tired and disappointed but didn’t dare say or show it. They hadn’t even had lunch yet, and the day would be much longer still. 

He was used to frustration and slagging progress, but it was so different when it concerned oneself. No wonder relatives and victims demanded and begged for quicker results. Waiting was hellish, and it hadn’t even been a day. 

At least he had the luxury of being in the middle of it, not contained safely at home, all alone with his thoughts. 

“Yah. Let’s check. Have you called Lewis?” At her confused look, he racked his brain for the right name. “L…ebowitz? The SOCO from yesterday!”

“Oh, Llewellyn! No, I haven’t yet. She said she’d give me a ring the minute she has something, so calling her now won’t… But you know what, let me just check.” Something on his face must have tipped her off and slightly amused despite himself, Hardy watched her scramble for her phone.

O o o o O O o o o O

The call to Evelyn didn’t yield anything. She hadn’t made much progress and the only thing she could say was that apart from the dirt on his clothes and a few finger-shaped bruises that didn’t leave prints, there was no conclusive evidence on who had grabbed him and why or even where.

The day before, while Hardy had been building hen-houses, Ellie had sent SOCO to the spot Hardy had woken. Harrington had been able to show them where it must have been, and they’d been all over the field with no results yet. The only thing that was certain was that Hardy hadn’t been inked in that field, as there was no signs of a struggle and the incessant amount of dirt and grass and moss on his clothes more or less screamed that there had been one. Sadly, all plants on him were common and grew everywhere, so there was no help coming from that direction.

His phone had only had his own prints on them and there hadn’t been any strange messages or calls, it had simply been waterlogged and that’s why it hadn’t worked. It was doing fine now and Ellie had given it back to its owner. 

She’d gotten a grunt as a thanks, but that was quite usual. They’d gone to lunch and tried to work on the list of suspects, but he’d gotten more and more irritated and irritating the longer the day dragged on.

After Hardy had gone out to vomit twice more, she’d glared him into leaving for the day. It was no use, she’d told him, and he could come back tomorrow. He’d bitten his tongue to not snap at her and that he was even making an effort to do that told her enough of his state. She’d pretended to not see his hands shaking and the occasional blank stare until he’d snapped himself back to the present. 

It wasn’t clear if he was reeling from what had happened or if it was a side-effect of the drugs he’d been given, but either way this was no way to get work done. Any other day, she’d have just tolerated him lurking in his office but as it were, she needed to assign tasks to the rest of the force and she wanted him far away from her speech. 

Giving an accurate outline of what had happened and what workforce was needed would have to include pictures, and she didn’t want him in the room for that. 

“Wow,” Katie said and Ellie nearly snapped at her just from the remaining, tense anger at their former laughter. It wasn’t fair – Harford hadn’t even been in the room when they’d giggled. “Someone must have been really angry. Glad he’s okay otherwise.”

She was right and Ellie swallowed the dislike for her she couldn’t get rid of because her shocked words did more to get her colleagues into the right mindset than her own anger before. It was infuriating but she’d take everything that would get all of those pillocks working. 

Assignments distributed, she went back to her own tasks and tried to find more traffic cameras along the road from Tesco to Hardy’s place which might have picked up on his movements.


	6. Chapter 6

The case dragged on worse than even Danny’s murder. At least there, they’d had evidence to process and things to follow up and suspects to check up on, and even with most of them being dead-ends, it had been something to _do_. This time, there simply were no clues, no evidence, nothing. On Saturday, Ellie and Hardy had walked out on the field where he’d woken up, trying to jog his memory but it had resulted into absolutely nothing if you didn’t count ‘utter frustration’ as a result. 

Combing through hours of CCTV and traffic cams during the weekend didn’t help at all. His car had not appeared on any more of them since it had left the carpark, not even those off from his supposed route. There were simply too many roads without cameras, though why his car would have taken the small by-roads was another matter entirely. The list of suspects was long but bloody worthless. All had alibis, like being in prison or being at a seminar or similar, very definitive whereabouts, and there were no upcoming new enemies Hardy had simply forgotten to mention. Or well, Ellie supposed, none that _anyone_ was aware of.

Monday morning, they got a bit of news from Forensics. They’d found cotton-fibres from the evidence sampled from his hair. Sometime during his captivity, someone had pulled a sack over his head, possibly a pillow-case. “Explains why they left my face as it is,” Hardy had muttered and left it at that while Ellie had to excuse herself with an overly-bright smile to go to the loo and scream into her bundled-up jacket just from imagining what that must have been like, not sure if it was a blessing or a curse that he didn’t remember. It was bad enough when things like that happened to strangers. Him being her friend made it that much worse.

They sat outside the station on the bench, their backs to the water, eating lunch. His nausea had passed after three days and while that still didn’t make him less of a fussy eater, at least now he _did_ eat. “So, what do we have,” Ellie asked, then swallowed the food in her mouth. “Sorry.” 

“Not much,” Hardy sighed. He was staring dejectedly at his sandwich: rye-bread, salad, tomato and cheese, packed into a Tupperware container together with a yoghurt, apple-slices and seedless grapes. Daisy was in fussing-mode, as he’d explained at her raised eyebrows, and apparently it was alright for _Daisy_ to fuss but not for her. “We know where I ended up and that I’ve been in West Milton to get the milk. Nobody noticed me or anything suspicious and I drove off and then – blank.” He took a deep breath and grimaced, finally deciding that eating might not kill him and bit into his sandwich. 

“Right,” Ellie picked up the thread. “Sometime after nine-thirty, you left Tesco and someone knocked you out and drugged you and drew insults all over your skin.” She stared at her own soggy white-bread-with-salami and glanced over at his much more appealing looking food until he rolled his eyes and offered her the other half. She took it without even feeling bad about it. Took an apple-slice and three grapes as well. “Sorry, but does that make any sense to you? Wow, this is delicious!”

“At one point, I must have left the car to get knocked out.”

“Yes,” Ellie frowned. “Why would you do that?”

“Accident? Someone on the road?”

“Ooooh,” she perked up, “that’s a good point! Someone could have lain in wait for you!”

“Except why? I forgot the milk – why would anyone bank their ambush on such a random happenstance? A bit illogical, I’d say.”

“Maybe you were followed?”

He scrunched his nose and nibbled an apple. “Not ruling it out, but that would mean they’d have to know where I was going so they could lie in wait on the way back.”

“Yeah, but what if they hadn’t lain in wait for you?” She had said it just to keep the ball rolling, more or less unaware of what was being said. Only when there was no answer from Hardy did Ellie look up and realized he was staring at her with wide eyes and a glimmer of excitement in them. She went over what she’d said and oh. Oh! “Oh, wow. What …”

“What if this isn’t about me at all?”

She blinked and tried to contain her own excitement that they might be getting somewhere. They didn’t, not really. The evidence didn’t multiply just because they had a new theory, but this theory might give them a lot more to work with than what they had now: No suspects, nearly no evidence and not even a motive beyond ‘stupid, dangerous prank’, which was _not_ the working theory despite Orrin still claiming it was possible. 

“What if you saw something, got out of the car and then got knocked out? And someone decided… what? ‘Let’s draw on that copper’? Still sounds a bit far-fetched.” All the hatred spewed on his skin seemed to be so personal…

Hardy was slowly chewing more of his apples. “It’s actually perfect. Whatever they were doing when I interrupted, me being a policeman would provide perfect cover for whatever it was they were doing. Investigating a case that involved me would draw workforces away from the real crime-” 

Ellie snorted. “It is a real crime, Sir. Just because you didn’t die doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.” 

He rolled his eyes again but nodded concession. “Fine. The … original crime. Better?” At her nod, he continued. “It would draw attention away and bundle resources and make everyone look left when they were going right. Sleight of hand – a conjurer’s trick.”

Make it personal so the police would look into personal matters… it had a ring of truth about it. “So what… do we abandon our working theory in favour of this?” 

“What working theory? That someone got angry with me and tried to teach me a lesson? I think it defies the purpose a bit if I don’t remember the lesson, doesn’t it?”

It angered her, his attitude. “How can you be so blasé about it! This wasn’t a joke that went a little off!” 

He leaned away and glared back. “Do you think I don’t know it? You think it doesn’t affect me that I can’t remember a thing and yet know what must have happened? Think this is easy?” With deliberate care, he snapped the food-container closed and kept his eyes locked on its bright-green lid. “Think I find it funny that my own daughter is so worried she keeps checking up on me every two hours, on the dot, and wakes an hour earlier so she can make me breakfast and prepare lunch to go?” 

Whatever anger had raised its head evaporated at his words and Ellie felt like a tool. “No. Of course not, sorry. I just… People say it may have just been a prank and that makes me so mad, just the thought that anyone would think _this_ sort of viciousness could be even in the realm of pranks! But that was no reason to snap at you. Sorry.” He was the last person she wanted to snap at, really. He’d been unusually calm and soft-footed around this case, which would worry her if she didn’t know that it was because he feared she would kick him out if he was being unprofessional. Which worried her _even more_. Alec Hardy wasn’t one to step lightly even if he was stepping on someone’s toes. That he felt so insecure in this position only showed Ellie how much it mattered to him to stay involved.

“She sleeps in my bed,” Hardy murmured beside her, so low she had to strain to hear. 

“Daisy?” He nodded and Ellie looked for things to say to that. “Wow,” was all that came out. Daisy was seventeen, a year older than Tom. She couldn’t imagine how worried Tom would have to be to go sleep with his mother, and she understood his concern. 

“She comes in late after midnight and sometimes I don’t even notice until I wake in the morning.” He scrubbed his neck. “We both sleep better that way,” he finally admitted and it pinched her heart to hear it. She smothered the urge to hug him and instead just patted his knee. 

Platitudes went through her head, things like ‘she’ll be fine’ and ‘don’t worry, it will sort itself out again’, but she remembered how such things – true as they might be – had infuriated her when it concerned her own son. So instead, she repeated the pats and hoped he understood. 

“You want the fruit?” he asked her and offered the box to Ellie. She took it, not quite sure if the offering of food was some strange bonding-ritual in the Hardy-household or if he simply didn’t want his daughter to fret when he brought the leftovers back. 

“Thanks.” She ate a grape. “So, what do we do now? I mean, it’s not like we know what this is about now, do we?”

Sighing, Hardy leaned backwards, sagging a little into the bench. “Look into possible crimes, I guess? I mean, we shouldn’t strategically rule out any personal reasons but if that’s the motive, I don’t think I’ll be providing the solution anytime soon. Also…” he hesitated and stared at the sky for a moment. “Something’s not right with the memory-loss. If we go by the assumption that I’ve gotten drugged after being tied up, why can’t I remember being tied up at all?” 

Ellie scrunched up her nose. “Repressed maybe?” 

He rolled his head over and stared at her sideways, eyes wide. “You mean … psychologically?”

Defensive now, she sniffed. “Why not? It’s possible.” 

Hardy didn’t say anything, just kept looking at her until she had to give in to the insane urge to cross her arms in front of her. Finally, shortly before she was ready to snap at him again, he sighed and righted his head. “Yeah. Suppose it is.” He didn’t look happy about it, or even slightly convinced. To be fair, neither was she. Surely, there was an element of trauma in the process of being knocked out and subdued, maybe even undressed. But so much so that he’d supress the whole thing? That seemed a little out of the way. 

“I could ask my therapist if she knows something about repressed memories… Maybe there’s a way to get them back?”

“If they’re just repressed – I guess there are ways, yah. Supposedly…” he frowned, disgusted or angry she couldn’t say, “hypnosis or something.” 

Ellie looked over, thinking about Hardy sitting on a sofa letting someone poke around in his head. She didn’t think he’d feel comfortable enough for that and yet she could see him doing it anyway. Sense of duty or maybe just not wanting to seem like a wimp. “I don’t think that’s necessary yet. Maybe it’ll come back. And maybe it’s not even psychologically but indeed chemically, the amnesia. Did they tell you anything more about the blood tests?”

Hardy rubbed his eyes and blinked against the sluggish sun. “Not much. Substance they found is still unknown, the blood-cell-count is within normal parameters as are the thrombocytes. They’ve sent it off to a bigger lab to see if they can find something more.” He huffed. “My blood gets more travelling done than I do.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’ve been to Disneyland, after all.” 

Hardy groaned. “Oh god, don’t remind me.”

Ellie laughed loud. “I bet you were walking around with a perpetual frowny-face. Did parents hide their children away from you?” She winked and saw him smile a little. Daisy, when she’d asked her about the holiday, had told Ellie that Hardy had actually been ‘really cool’. He’d gone with the two girls wherever they wanted, carrying his book and finding a place to sit and read while Chloe and Daisy rode everything, from the children’s train-track to the biggest, scariest roller-coasters. But she would continue to tease him no matter what. By now, their relationship was based on it so solidly, it would be weird being suddenly nice and courteous. 

His phone beeped and he took it out, rolling his eyes and texting back quickly. She only had to look at him to know it was Daisy; the way his eyes softened and the worry-lines deepened a little told it all. Ellie bit her tongue and got her own worry back under control just as he finished and looked up at her. “Guess we better get inside. Maybe we can actually find a bloody reason for this crap now. It’s making my skin crawl, all the not-knowing.”

O o o o O O o o o O

Once they got inside, DC Harford walked up to him. Miller took a breath to speak up but Harford didn’t look at her and kept her eyes on him. Right. He was still boss in all things not related to his own case. He’d nearly forgotten, too wrapped up in his crap.

“Sir, is there any way I can get at least one more uniform for house-to-house? I don’t want to seem lazy, but we’ve got to get statements from all the visitors at the Holiday Park, and it’s close enough to Easter that it’s nearly booked out.” She gave him the kind of look that usually had Miller clench her jaw in annoyance, but Hardy had decided it was probably just determination that made Harford look like she was challenging everyone and everything. As long as she did her job – and it had gotten a lot better since her fuck-up during the Winterman-case – she could look at him and the world as she saw fit. 

Wearily, he thought about the list of officers they had available. With the football-match in Bridport this evening and the fun-fair in West Milton, most of them were on duty for that so there weren’t really that many. “Ah.... I’m sorry… I’ll have a look, but I don’t think we have more than …” he grimaced, “one? Maybe two?” 

She saw her bite back a sharp retort and take a deep breath instead. It amused him, how eager she was to prove herself and how much she had to restrain from biting back against supposed slights. That it bothered Miller so much was part of the hilarity, really. While he had heard her say that Harford was just as intolerable as he was, Hardy didn’t think that comparison would hold. She used her abrasiveness deliberately and chose her words and actions well while he simply had always lacked interest in what he was saying to other people or how they received his words. Tess had said once that it was his cluelessness that had attracted her to him first, before she’d found out that he actually fancied her. While it was mildly humiliating to be considered a social tortoise, it was better than being perpetually aware and conscious of how one would appear all the time. Maybe Harford’s abrasiveness had to do with being female, young and of colour. He didn’t know and would never just assume. He’d chosen to judge her on her performance only and so far, she’d been trying to make up for her stupidity and was doing fine. 

“Sorry,” he said therefor. “Wish I could give you more. It’s football, though, and we can’t pull any more from the regular duties.” He frowned, suddenly remembering what Harford was working on. “Wait. That’s the missing person’s case, right?” When she nodded, he shot a look towards Miller, who’d perked up as well from her silent disapproval of DC Harford. “Care to walk us through?”

It wasn’t a request, but he worded it like one anyway. He could do polite. He could also pack it back in if it didn’t yield results, but luckily for her, Harford nodded sharply and went to get her files before she followed them to an empty incident room. 

“Okay, this woman books herself in the Holiday Park, gives her name as Susanne Smith from Nottingham. She’s alone, at least that’s what she said to the receptionist, books for a week, pays in advance. That’s the usual way they do it, so nothing out of the ordinary. Five days ago, she was due to check out but didn’t. Reception thought she wanted to stay longer, went ‘round, knocked, no answer. They figured she’ll turn up later since her stuff is still in the trailer – they looked through the window – and waited. When she doesn’t turn up a day later, they call the police. Uniform are there when they open the door – second set of keys – and they call and check but there’s nobody there, her suitcases are now gone with all that was hers. Trailer’s empty. Receptionist can’t swear that nobody left with her stuff while he was there – he’s got a little shop as well and they mostly depend on their guests’ honesty.” Harford frowned as if that was a highly suspicious way of conducting work. Hardy suppressed a small smirk when he spotted Miller roll her eyes. “So nothing. CCTV was out, there was water-damage to one of the fuse-boxes. We check up on Smith. Turns out she doesn’t exist. Her address is fake, there are fifteen Susanne – or Susan – Smiths in Nottingham-area but all of them are accounted for and none of them ever came to Broadchurch. Not even to Dorset.” Harford looked like she very much wished to be among them. “We have a picture from when she arrived – camera was working then – but it’s grainy.” She pulled a photo out of her files and showed it to him and Miller. It was indeed very grainy but they could make out that the woman had long light hair, either blond or light brown. Medium height, medium weight, jeans and a jumper with a rain-jacket on top. 

“What about the car?” 

“What car, Sir?”

Miller spoke before he could. “She would have had a car, wouldn’t she? Otherwise, how did she get there?”

“Ah. Yes, of course – it was a rental, and it was returned to the rental-place five days ago, sometime after closing. They have a drop-off-system; you just drop the keys and leave the car in the lot. That morning, they found the car and well. They cleaned it. It was rented out right the next day and when we got our hands on it, there was just nothing SOCO could do.” 

Damn. Hardy blew out a frustrated breath. It earned him a stern look from Harford, to which he responded with a raised eyebrow. She had the sense to look slightly chastised. “Yah, happens. How’s the car paid for?”

“Oh…” she looked through her notes – very meticulous. Good. “Ah, here. It’s a credit-card to the name of Susanne Smith. We’ve asked for details from the bank, haven’t heard back yet. Can’t be the same address, they always check for a valid address. I’m hoping to get at least something helpful there… Sorry. It’s a bit of a bust. She was there, she was real, people have seen her check in but nobody seems to have seen her since. She either never left the trailer or did so only when nobody was watching – as far as we know, we haven’t had the resources to ask everyone in the park yet. Or maybe she left the first day and just never came back.”

Harford leaned back in her chair, looking annoyed and frustrated. “Sorry. Not much of a case. I don’t even know if this is a case of fraud or a more serious crime.”

Hardy mirrored her pose and pulled off his glasses. 

“Do you mind me asking – why’re you suddenly interested in this?” The question was posed to Miller so he didn’t bother to stop staring at the photo. Vaguely, he heard Miller explain.

Had he seen the woman? If so, when? Before she’d vanished? _As_ she’d vanished? Had he talked to her? Where? _Christ_ , this was annoying! He couldn’t even be sure that it was missing memory or if he really never saw her! 

“So, what? Does that mean you’re taking over this case?” Harford didn’t sound pleased about the prospect, and Hardy couldn’t blame her. He focused back on the two women at the table, shoving the feeling of being incomplete and bloody useless to the side. 

“No,” he answered before Miller could get snippy. “It’s your case. Except that there is a possibility that we might have to tread into your territory if there’s anything to our new theory. I’ll see that you get more people for the house-to-house. You mind if we help out?”

If Miller’s eyebrows shot any higher, they’d leave her face entirely. Harford seemed reluctant and he very much remembered the feeling of suddenly being shoved aside by senior detectives in a case. He’d hated it, which is why he was actually trying to be nice. 

Anyway, even if this had nothing to do with why he woke up in a field covered in filthy words, he needed to think of something else for a bit. If he had to tread on Harford’s toes to get some distraction, he’d do it with or without her permission.

“Well, I suppose I can always use more eyes.”

O o o o O O o o o O

Katie left, clearly not happy about the new development but at least smart enough to shut up about it. Hardy stayed at the table and was making no motions of moving, so Ellie felt the need to stick with him.

He was staring at the files Katie had left and frowned, not in disapproval but like he wanted to say something without knowing what it was yet. 

“Sir?” she prompted. Sometimes, it helped.

“What about the rental-company?” He was still staring at the files.

“Uhm… we just talked about it? Credit-card goes on the same name but-“

Now he looked at her, clearly annoyed. “Not that, Miller! I was here when we talked about it, after all.”

“Well, with your spotty memory…”

That got a glare, and it was not at all playful or in the realm of his usual glares. He was truly angry or stung, and instantly Ellie felt like a monster. “Sorry, Sir. I… sorry.” 

With a tired sigh, he rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Yah, ‘s alright.” It wasn’t, judging by the way he was tugging at his sleeves. His bandage and the wrist-marks were not really visible if one didn’t try to spot them but he was clearly self-conscious about them and tried to keep them hidden when there were more people present than just her. There was probably an interesting psychological reason behind it, but for Ellie it was enough that he hated them to hate them just as much, if not more. “But what I mean – have they not checked the rental-company for security-cameras? Maybe they have a better picture of her. And if she – or someone else – has brought the car back, there’s surely traffic-cameras in the area where they’d be visible. Is there anything in the files?” He reached across the table and pulled the folder over. It was pathetically thin. “Nope, doesn’t look like anyone checked.”

“Hm. Anything keeping us here today?” She wanted out of this stifling office just as much as he did, away from the dead-end leads and lack of ideas and too many bloody alibis. If they had to check more cameras, at least it was something worthwhile. Even without a connection to Hardy being attacked, at least it was _something_. 

With a decisive nod, Hardy jotted down the rental-company’s name and address and pushed himself away from the table. Ellie followed quickly, grabbing her jacket and – because he was already on his way downstairs, told Katie what they would be doing and that they’d update her about any progress. If she rubbed it in that nobody had checked for more and clearer pictures or film, well… nobody’s business but her own, right?


	7. Chapter 7

“I’m sorry, I already told your colleague that I wasn’t here when she picked up the car. And Peter, who had the shift, is on holiday till next month. Grand Canyon, the lucky bastard.” Eric Hasland, the weedy-looking young man behind the rental’s desk, looked wistful at his hands. 

“We know,” Miller got him back on course. “What we’re here for is the tapes. You do have security-cameras, I’d think?”

“Oh! Oh, yes, of course!” Peter actually slapped his head and winced at the sting. Hardy had to force himself to not react beyond seesawing on his toes a little. Miller didn’t bother and grinned at the young clerk, who blushed and rushed off to the back. He came back not even five minutes later, with a USB-drive in his hands. It had the company’s logo printed brightly on the side. “Here. Uhm…” he faltered just as Hardy reached out to take it. “Uh… am I allowed to give this to you?” 

“Yes, you are,” Hardy nodded, trying for encouraging. “We’ll give you a receipt for it so everyone knows you did nothing wrong. How much is on it?”

“That’s okay, then, right?” Peter looked at Miller who smiled at him, too, and nodded as well. Right. People tended to believe her instantly. Hopefully, she’d keep that superpower on the light side of the force. “It’s got the feeds from our cameras, inside and outside, from the whole months. We always save them as monthly bundles, so it’s easier to just grab all the relevant folders and put them on here.” He finally handed the stick to him and smiled. “I hope you find her, then.” 

They left and after looking around the company’s parking-space, they drove back to the station and set up in the video-room. Miller pulled out pastries and put one in front of him, glaring so hard that he took a reluctant bite from his. His nose scrunched up on its own accord from the sticky-sweet taste. Yagh, how could anyone like this stuff?

“Okay, here we are. The date Susanne rented the car…. There she is!” Miller pointed at the screen and Hardy had to pull her finger away to see. The first time Smith appeared, she had her head down to look through her handbag and when she stood at the counter, one could only see the back of her head and shoulders. But as she left, they got a clear image of her face. “Ha! Gotcha! Now… do you know her, Sir?” She froze the picture.

He frowned and looked at the woman first directly, then from further away and with slightly closed eyes. Nothing. Had he seen her? It wasn’t impossible, but he couldn’t remember. With a sigh, he shook his head. “Not that I remember, no. But that’s not saying much, is it?”

Miller smiled thinly but her gaze was on the screen. She frowned. “I think I might have, though.” She looked again and then grabbed her phone. “Just a minute…”

While she dialled, Hardy printed out the picture and pulled up the outside-camera feed. Those were less clear but the lot was well-covered by the wide angle, and he searched for the date the car had been left in the car-park. Distantly, he heard Miller mutter into her phone but when a name came up, he listened closer. 

“Olly! Yes… no, no, everything’s fine. I’ll be home when I said I will. Listen… I’ve got a question. When you met with that reporter from The Guardian – what was her name again? Yes, I want to google her, exactly. Phyllis Simmons? Ah, Simons, okay. Thanks. Tell the boys I’ll be home just as planned. Yes. No, nothing noteworthy, thank you.” She smiled at the phone, probably hoping her nephew would hear it in her voice and would not be suspicious. While she said her goodbyes, Hardy was already on the net, looking up Phyllis Simons, Guardian. 

“Damn,” he muttered when a picture came up. “Good catch, Miller.” He turned the screen and yes, it was the woman who had rented out the car. “I think you’ll have to get Oliver to give a statement after all…” He was not looking forward to it. Maybe he could leave that to Miller and Harford. 

“Shit,” Miller murmured. “Well, at least now we have a good picture to show during the house-to-house.”

“Yah. And we won’t have problems with getting enough staff. A missing, award-winning journalist is definitely grounds enough to get more people. I’ll talk to Elaine, you get Harford up to date.”

“I will. Anything on the films for the night the car was dropped off?”

Since they were already on it, they decided to put the other tasks on hold for a few minutes. The timestamp showed three-fifty-two when the rental drove into the lot and a dark-clad figure stepped out and to the box for the keys. They never raised their head and with the big, bundled-up coat it could have been either man or woman.

“Well, that’s a bust…” Miller muttered and reached to switch off the screen but Hardy slapped her hand away from the button, ignoring her protest.

“Wait! Go back, just a … there!” 

“What am I looking at?” 

“The car, outside the fence – that’s my car!”

Miller stared closely at the screen. “Are you sure? It’s pretty dark and far away…” She enlarged the picture and focused on the plates. “Not yours, Sir.”

“Not my plates, no. But that’s my car. See the bump on the fender? I’ve made an appointment for … well, for yesterday actually to get it fixed. That’s my car.” He leaned back, stunned. “What the fuck?”

They watched a bit further and as expected, the person who’d dropped off the key stepped out of the yard and into his own waiting car at the passenger-side and drove off. 

“Well,” Miller said after a few moments of utter silence. “Well, at least now we know for sure that you and the missing journalist are connected. That should rattle out quite a bit more resources, right?”

O o o o O O o o o O

Things got into gear after the discovery of the missing person’s identity. They called her editor at The Guardian but Phyllis had been on a leave of absence for personal reasons and had not been expected back at her desk for at least another two weeks. Her boss didn’t know what she had been up to, not even _if_ she had been up to anything. The colleagues from Stretford station in Manchester were informed and were doing the legwork there. They talked to her family and friends and landlord, but with no further results or anything hinting at foul play there. Apparently, she hadn’t told anyone where she was going and why, but her home looked undisturbed and her sister insisted that she’d been fine when they’d talked the day before she’d left. Phyllis hadn’t mentioned that she was going to Dorset or that she was leaving home at all, or even that she was off work.

While they now had ten more uniforms in Wessex allocated for legwork and two detectives from Manchester, Ellie felt that they were still not an inch closer to solving any of the mysteries surrounding Phyllis Simons and Alec Hardy. The Manchester DI, Robert ‘Call me Rob, please’ Jacobs, had shoved Katie out of her seat as the lead for Phyllis’s disappearance without even a second thought and was occupying one of the conference-rooms now. He deliberately ignored Hardy’s presence whenever they met and pretended the assault on him either hadn’t happened or was not connected to Phyllis Simons at all. He set Ellie’s teeth on edge worse than her own boss had ever done, despite him being very polite and courteous towards her. Not even Hardy in his first days in Broadchurch had managed to make her feel so much like an amateur, and Jacobs didn’t even have to shout to do it.

He was a colossal wanker, and when she said so to Hardy, she got one of his rare, open grins in return. “Sure is, Miller. But since he insists to treat the two cases separate, it gives us more freedom.” She sat down, intrigued. “If he wants us out of the way of Phyllis’s case, we can work on… well, mine. Think Harford might be up to changing her focus as well?”

Miller scrunched her nose, a so far unbeknown territorial claim rising inside her. Why did he want Katie in on this? “Why her, Sir?”

Hardy looked at her calmly and she felt a little self-conscious under his scrutiny. “I know she grates on you. But she’s got bite and she’s got something to prove. She needs to get back the trust and respect she lost when she fucked up in the Winterman-case, and she knows that all-too-well. This kind of thing is exactly what she’d want and needs: an opportunity to show up a superior – and it’s not us but Jacobs, which is nice – and a case to crack. If you can look over your personal dislike of her, I think she can be of great value to us. Also – we need more than us two if we want to take that arse out there down a peg or two and solve this thing.” He waggled his eyebrows, a vindictive twinkle in his eyes. Ellie couldn’t help but like this completely unexpected side of him. He always seemed so professionally detached, even when she knew for a fact a case was bugging or bothering him. Jacobs’ attitude _was_ shitty, so she didn’t mind working against him a little bit. They wouldn’t hinder his work – after all, they had the same case even if the twat refused to believe it.

Hardy was waiting and it took her a bit to get that he wouldn’t ask Katie to contribute if she refused to work with her. Well… DC Harford could be a bit of a pain, but she was not bad detective-material, really. And while she had been utterly stupid to hide the fact that Ed Burnett was her father _especially_ in their station with its already wonky history regarding personal involvement of staff, she’d tried to make up for it ever since. “Yeah, okay. Now another thing… do we tell Jacobs about Olly, or is that our little secret, Sir?” She winked and it earned her a very cheeky grin.

O o o o O O o o o O

They didn’t keep Oliver a secret. He went to Jacobs and told him that Miller remembered Phyllis’s face from when she’d talked to her nephew, and he gave Jacobs the address of said nephew and the name. He did not add that the nephew was a reporter, though, so maybe he was a little bit deliberately withholding information when you wanted to look at it that way.

Hardy didn’t want to. 

Jacobs was as frosty as he’d been from the minute he stepped into the station and rolled up all they’d done and dismissed everything he considered unimportant. While it truly did give him and Miller freedom, it still grated on a very personal level. He’d been _roofied_ and knocked out and tied up and dumped in a field, and while it might not be as bad as whatever had happened to Phyllis Simons, it was still an assault against a fellow officer _and_ it was related to Phyllis. But Jacobs had taken a look at the picture of his car at the rental-station and dismissed it as ‘not yours, wrong plates’ and not quite shoved him out of the newly claimed office. Well – fuck him! 

Maybe Jacobs was a knob to everyone he met or maybe it was something personal Hardy didn’t know about – didn’t matter. _’Rob’_ had made his bed, now he would have to lie in it while he and Miller would solve the case by not dismissing anything ‘small-town’. Small towns could be just as bad as big cities. Same crimes, just less of them.

The anger that was on a slow cooker every day and which heated up slightly each time Daisy clung to him at night or in the evening on the couch had finally started to boil. It was the kind of anger he remembered from Sandbrook, the one that had saved him from sliding into relentless self-pity after Tess’s fuck-up and the diagnosis from his cardiologist. If Jacobs was fine with leaving evidence unexamined – good. More for them. 

After getting Harford into the mix – and that had been as easy as catching a runaway snail – he sent Miller home to get re-acquainted with her children. She’d been at his side every second he remembered and he knew she was fussing though he honoured her effort of hiding it by pretending he didn’t know. Maybe somewhere inside him, he felt a bit grateful about it, too. 

Daisy, though, worried him. She was home when he came in, which wasn’t a surprise these days, and had clearly made a Shepherd’s Pie from scratch. While it smelled delicious and he was hungry, the worry over her unusual behaviour was troubling. “Hmm, this smells fantastic. Did you make it yourself?” He resolved to have a bit of a talk with her after dinner.

“Yes, I even bought lamb to make it just right! I hope it’s good … I think it is but I only tasted it before it was in the oven and I’m not sure if it all works together as it should be. Do you want some juice? Or just water? A beer maybe?” Her eyes were bright and maybe a bit frantic, and it hurt him to see her like this. He’d rather take Miller fussing – she knew enough to understand he wasn’t going to drop dead the next second or disappear without a trace. 

Still – not now. “Just water, ta. Sit down, let’s eat – I’m starving.” 

The pie was good, if a bit salty. He didn’t tell Daisy, though, and anyway, drinking lots of water was supposedly very healthy. When they’d finished, he went to clean up but Daisy jumped to it, nearly shoving him out of the way. “Sit down, I can do it – it’s no bother!”

Wearily, Hardy sat on the sofa and watched her for a minute. “Daise.” She stopped what she was doing, stock-still at the basin. If she’d turn around, he was sure he would see her gnaw on her lower lip. “Daisy, sweetheart. Come here.” 

“I… the dishes. I’ll just do it quick and then-“

“Leave them. Daise, please. Come here.”

Her shoulders shook and he saw her tense as if she was drawing in a deep breath to be strong. It broke his heart all over again. Finally, she turned and flicked her gaze up to his eyes, then back down again and all around the room. God, she had done nothing wrong, and someone had made his little girl look so scared and worried and that person would _pay_ for that, he’d make certain!

Right now, though, Daisy was what was important. “Come?” he asked again and she came and sat on the couch, perching right on the edge so she could jump up and run away whenever she felt it was needed. This wouldn’t do. 

Hardy leaned back against the backrest and tugged her along, pulling her gently against him despite squishing her a bit first. It made her laugh, and that was good anyway. 

He gave her a kiss to the top of the head when she’d rearranged herself into a comfortable position at his side. 

“Daisy, you worry me.” She took a breath to answer but he shushed her. “Let me say my piece, then it’s your turn, yah?” Daisy nodded. “So, you worry me. I understand that it’s because you’re worried about _me_ , right?” Again, she nodded. “And that’s understandable and I’m really glad you’re trying to take care of me. It’s flattering, really, and I don’t think I’ve eaten so well in years! Definitely never have when I was still married,” he teased and it caused a little hiccupping giggle. Tess was a truly horrible cook, much too impatient, and while he liked to do it and was quite alright with it, back in Sandbrook they’d hardly had a family-dinner that didn’t consist of quick-made pasta and sauce due to their hectic jobs. “So I’m really grateful for your efforts, I am. But Daise… you’re seventeen, not thirty. You shouldn’t have to do all this – not all the time, at least, and certainly not because you’re afraid I’ll disappear if you don’t.” 

He hugged her a little closer, knowing he’d hit the spot when she’d tensed at his words. “I won’t. Not because of that, I promise.”

“But you can’t promise to never… never be gone,” she whispered, avoiding his eyes. “I know you can’t.” 

“Oh, sweetheart…”

“I… I just want to make sure you’re okay. I nearly-,” her voice caught and she had to breathe hard until she calmed, “I nearly lost you already without knowing about it, and now I could have lost you again and I’d not have known until someone came to the door to tell me! Do you know how that feels?”

He gave a rueful smile. “Oh yes, darling. I know exactly how that feels.” She pushed back from him and stared as if he’d just told her goblins had come to kidnap the Queen. “Remember … no, I suppose you were too small. Well, there was a moment when your mum got into a fight with a man who’d just beaten up his wife. He knocked her out and she had to be taken to the hospital. She was mostly fine, just a bit concussed. Anyway, I didn’t work with her directly then, and I didn’t know about it until someone mentioned it off-hand in the breakroom. I nearly fainted right there.”

She blinked. “What did you do?” 

Hardy smiled ruefully. “Fussed like you can’t believe if for weeks. Until she told me in no uncertain terms that she’d run away if I didn’t stop, that she couldn’t work like this and she wouldn’t give up her job just because her husband couldn’t live with her being a detective.” He smirked. “I was fine with her being a detective. I just wasn’t fine with her getting hurt.” He wouldn’t have dreamed of telling Tess to stop working, he’d never been that sort of person. “So yes. I know quite well how it feels to suddenly realize that maybe you won’t be together forever, that something could always happen that ends things. Little things or big things. It’s scary, isn’t it?”

Daisy nodded. “I hate it.”

“I know. I do, too. Do you remember a bit about the Gillespie-case?” 

“You mean the one that broke your heart?” She snorted. “Well, hard not to remember, right?” 

“When I found the girl, Pippa, I carried her out of the water and…” he stopped, shoving the uprising sense-memory of Pippa’s weight and the feeling of her flesh squishing over his hands in ways flesh normally didn’t away as hard as he could. The stench that wouldn’t leave him for days – and apparently not for years – and the water that had run down his body, trickling along his frozen limbs and feeling hot like fresh blood. Whenever he’d stumbled, she’d moved in his arms and more water would pour out, not simply from her clothing but from _her_ , her body… Again, he shoved hard to keep them down. “But when I first saw her, before I’d jumped in, I thought she was you. I thought for some completely insane reason, that the girl in the water was not Pippa Gillespie but Daisy Hardy, and I wanted to die right there at the water’s edge. Then I just had to know for sure, I _had_ to know. That’s why I went in. Stupid, really.” 

It had nearly killed him. The water had been sluggish enough in that part of the river to remain nearly unmoving and the bacteria from the decomposition where her body had been open to the elements had given him a nasty infection when he’d swallowed it. He’d coughed and coughed and developed a fever, but instead of resting he’d suppressed it with medicine and pure stubbornness. He’d barely slept and eaten crap and coughed and sneezed and ignored it until he couldn’t anymore, until Tess and Dave and the pendant and a dead faint when he’d just walked up the stairs to the little flat he’d rented after moving out of his home. Protracted Myocarditis, the doctors had told him. Ignored for so long it had damaged his heart and wasn’t it a joke that he’d have been fine if he’d just gone to the doctor when he’d first developed symptoms after the water?

“Yeah. Pretty stupid,” Daisy agreed and pulled him back to the present. “Guess … guess it makes sense, though. I… I would have wanted to make sure, too,” she whispered and snuggled closer. “I don’t know what to do here, Dad. I don’t… I … If you …” she broke off, trying to stop the sob that was rising from deep down and oh, he knew the feeling, knew it so well! He wished he could make it better, make everything alright for his little girl and ensure that she’d never be in pain and never be scared and never be alone in her whole life. 

But he couldn’t. As much as she couldn’t keep him alive and with her by cooking and cleaning and transforming herself into the most perfect of teenagers in the world, he couldn’t hold her in a bubble of safety and happiness. 

“I know,” he whispered into her hair, rocking her slightly against his side. “I know, darling, I know. I know, I wish I could promise you to be here for your forever, but I can’t. I can’t, I would if I could.” 

Daisy was now openly crying, silent tears of misery and fear. “I didn’t talk about it with Mom,” she sniffed, “didn’t know how to and I was scared she’d just laugh it off and say it was no big deal. I know it’s unfair – she wouldn’t do that – but just talking about it makes it so… so real, you know?”

He did. He did know how saying something out loud made it that much scarier, that much closer to true. Every father, every parent probably knew and if they didn’t, they would be crappy parents just for that. 

“And… and I don’t know why I’m doing all this, except I … I want to, you know? Please don’t tell me I have to stop, please?” 

“No, of course not, darling. Never. If that makes you feel better, by all means continue. But please believe me when I say that I don’t expect that from you. And even if you start going out again or get back to being a bit of a slob, I won’t just leave, okay?”

At that, Daisy rolled her eyes. “Well, duh! I never thought _that_ , Dad!” She giggled at his expression of slight disbelief and even when nothing had really been resolved tonight, it felt like he’d done something right with her. 

And if she slipped into his bed again after midnight, he didn’t say anything and just hugged her closer, secretly grateful that she would be here and he wouldn’t have to go look if she was still in her bed when he inevitably woke from his familiar nightmare of carrying Daisy instead of Pippa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Two things: I'm sure this isn't the right procedure, putting Jacobs on the case outside of his jurisdiction. Sorry for that, hope it won't bother anyone too much.  
>  Second, an explanation for my personal head-canon: A friend of mine once told me that people can develop severe heart-problems from catching myocarditis, and you can catch that from a prolonged bronchitis or bacteria or a virus if you were not careful. It can permanently damage your heart. (I researched it to make sure!) I've never quite believed that Hardy had a genetic heart-problem or that he would reach 40+ without any symptoms before. But seeing him wade through that water, near-drowning in the stuff where a body had been happily decomposing for three days... for me, that had always been the point his heart started failing. So the part about that was very important to get out into the world, because it makes more sense than a 'broken heart' from sorrow and stress alone.   
> So: protracted myocarditis. That's why. _


	8. Chapter 8

“Wow, you look like proper shit.”

“Thanks a lot, Miller.”

“No, really. Proper. Shit. What happened?”

“Didn’t sleep.” Ellie waited for him to add ‘so well’ or ‘much’, but apparently that was all. 

Concerned, she watched him stir his tea with the end of a pen. No visible shaking of his hands, so he’d be fine for the day. “I thought you were getting better?” He had, hadn’t he? While the first few days after the attack he’d been pale and tired, he’d gotten back to his annoying, energetic self since. 

“I am,” he scowled. “I just didn’t sleep. Had a talk with Daisy.”

“Oh.” She grimaced. “Didn’t go so well?”

“Oh no – it went fine. I just…” he stopped, frowning and started to sort his files on the table. He wouldn’t answer, Ellie knew, so she let it rest. “Anyway, where are we? Do we talk to Oliver today?”

“Ah, yes. I asked to see him this morning while Tom’s in school and Fred’s at the day-care. He’s expecting us and practically bouncing on his toes. Thinks it’ll be something worth reporting, I guess.”

“Of course he thinks that. He always thinks that. He’d report on a frog-race if that’s the only thing that happened on the planet! But fine, let’s go get that out of the way.”

Ellie hid her smile. Hardy’s grouch over her nephew would probably never end, and she had to agree that at least eight months of the year, Olly was a little shit. But deep down he had a good heart despite having been a terrible gossip-monger even as a child. She should have just ended the call when he’d asked her if the boy on the beach had been Danny, but she doubted that it would have mattered much.

After giving Katie the task of searching the CCTV-tapes surrounding the rental agency for Hardy’s car, they made their way over to Lucy’s. Her sister wasn’t there, which was good because she tended to flirt with Hardy despite – or rather _because_ of – his perpetual scowl. That was another person he hadn’t quite forgiven for the crap-heap that Joe’s trial had been, and for some inexplicable reason, Lucy found it amusing. Maybe she should have been angrier with her sister, Ellie thought, but she’d just been so _tired_ after the acquittal. She’d needed every person at her side she could get. Hardy, the bastard, had just vanished back to Sandbrook, and Beth had needed all the support and strength herself. It had helped Ellie to be the strong one for Beth and Tom and be the mum she always was to Fred. ‘Fake it till you make it’ had been her motto at the time, and she _had_ made it in the end. But without her family providing a bit of leeway for her to break down in private, away from the boys, she wouldn’t have. They had been invaluable. She found she could be mad at them for their faults and errors in judgment and still be immensely grateful for their support. 

“Hey, Aunt Ell,” Olly greeted her with a kiss to the cheek, then gave a cheeky smirk at Hardy. “DI Hardy. How good to see you again.” It earned him a scowl, but that only seemed to amuse Olly more. Oh goody – hopefully he would reign in his arsehole-behaviour a little bit during the interview.

They took seats in the kitchen and Ellie went right to the kettle to make some tea. Habit. “Olly, we’re here in official capacity. We’re currently…” 

“It’s got to do with Phyllis, right?” he interrupted. “I tried to call her mobile but it’s turned off and at her desk they said I should talk to the police in Manchester. So what – is she dead?”

“Well,” Ellie started but Hardy interrupted her, leaning forward on the kitchen-chair and staring at Olly with hard, dark eyes. 

“We’re not involved in any case, if there is even one, that concerns the whereabouts of Phyllis Simons,” he said very deliberately. “We would like to speak to her in regards of another incident, involving myself, where she is a possible witness.” 

Ellie quickly stood to prepare the tea to hide her astonishment. Hardy was throwing Olly a bone to pick, a meaty one, by mentioning the attack on him at all. If she knew Olly, and she thought she did quite well, he would jump on it and dig deeper with abandon. 

“Oh, well. If she’s a witness to a crime – it is a crime that happened, right?” Hardy nodded sharply, “Well, she must be a valuable one if you’re looking for her even though she’s clearly not available. Tell me, Detective: do you think her disappearance – because she did disappear, she’d have picked up my call otherwise – had anything to do with the incident you so vaguely did not describe?”

Hardy smiled up at her when Ellie placed the tea on front of him, maybe just because he was grateful but she wouldn’t be surprised if he did it to hide the predatory gleam in his eyes from Oliver. Her darling nephew had taken the bait, whatever it was. She sat down on her own chair and searched her bag for her notebook to be prepared for what was coming next. 

“Not as such, no.” He stopped after that to take a suspiciously slow sip from his mug. “The Manchester police is treating the two incidents as completely separate.” There was a victorious gleam in Olly’s eyes, along with a twinkle of understanding. He had caught on to what Hardy was so very deliberately _not_ saying and leaned back to drink his own tea now. _Manchester_ police were treating it as separate cases. There was no question as to whether Oliver would just take their version as fact now. 

“Alright, I get it. So, you’re just looking for Phyllis as a witness, right? Well, we met on Sunday, not last Sunday but the one before. You’d seen her, Ellie, right?” She nodded. “Yeah, we’d just finished talking. Didn’t see her later and didn’t see her before, but she phoned to make an appointment and she didn’t say where she was going. Wait,” he stopped himself, “while she didn’t say it, I did give her Maggie’s number if she wanted to research some more. That’s it.” Olly leaned backwards with his tea, smugness and wariness warring on his face. 

“And can you say what she was working on? What she was researching? Anything that would give us a hint at where she was?” Ellie asked. Oliver shook his head.

“Sorry, no. Well – I can tell you what we talked about, I guess, but she didn’t say what she was truly interested in or at the least, she lied to me about her intent.”

Hardy perked up and leaned over. “Oh? Do go on. Please,” he added grumpily after Oliver very deliberately waited to hear exactly that. 

“She was asking about Broadchurch, Danny’s death and the Winterman-case. Said she’s working on a little thing about small towns and their crimes and asked about anything I’d covered during my time at the ‘Echo’, but I don’t think she was truly interested in Nigel poaching pheasants or the occasional weed-dealing from the schoolyard. Not even in our chicken-killer.”

Olly looked a bit disgruntled and Ellie recalled the picture of Phyllis Simons. She was attractive, and Oliver a notorious skirt-chaser. “Has she turned you down?” she asked and tried to look sympathetic. Oliver, though, scowled. 

“Not as you think. I didn’t ask her out, if that’s what you’re implying! I just wanted to get a bit of an inside for the story she was chasing, seeing as I’ve contributed and all. She said she’d give me _credit_ if anything comes off it.” He said it like credit was the same thing as a pile of dog-shit, and Ellie couldn’t help but smirk. 

“How inconsiderate of her.” The twinkle of amusement in Hardy’s eyes didn’t help at all to keep her façade and not laugh. “So, what would be your guess as to what she was truly researching? I bet you have a guess.”

It seemed like someone had let the air out of Olly, the way he sagged. “I don’t know. I tried to coax it out, gave hints and such for her to take and let something slip, but she was too closed up about it. Guess it’s fair – I wouldn’t want another journalist steal my thunder, either. Sorry.” He perked up again and leaned over the table, eagerly smiling at Hardy. “Now, what can you tell me about the case you’re working on?”

Hardy took a deep breath but Ellie interrupted. “Well, you could ask Maggie. She has the official statement of the incident after all.” She knew he wouldn’t. Maggie was still not keen to speak with Oliver after he’d left the Echo in favour of a gossip-rag. He’d since come to his senses, Ellie knew, disenchanted from the pettiness used on and in his chosen paper so that even he had thrown in the towel in utter disgust and was now looking for internationally acclaimed papers to get more experience, even looking for something outside Britain. “Other than that, we can’t say anything. Sorry. You should know that,” she added and felt smug satisfaction when she saw the jab had hit home. 

Good. She hoped it hurt.

To her utter surprise, Hardy offered more. “If you want to know about Phyllis’s case, you better wait for the official statement the lead officer will soon dispense. DI Jacobs is very concerned about the international reach Ms Simons had with her articles and her tendency to write about organized crime.”

Olly’s eyebrows shot up. “But you’re not.” He sat straighter, could hardly keep still on his seat. “You don’t think it has anything to do with that, do you?”

“It’s very much not my case and neither I nor DS Miller are in any position to say anything about the direction DI Jacobs is or isn’t taking Phyllis Simons’ disappearance.” Hardy widened his eyes, nodded sharply and stood from the table. “We better get going, Miller.”

Outside, she grabbed Hardy by the arm. “Did you just sic Olly on DI Jacobs, Sir?”

He stared at her as if she’d claimed to be a mermaid. “Why ever would I do that, Miller?” Then he turned and walked towards the car. “Coming?”

O o o o O O o o o O

The wipers battled against the sudden downpour but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. Ellie couldn’t see much further than the hood of her car and had to drive very slowly so she wouldn’t hit anything. It was one of those heavy March-showers that never lasted long at the coast so they would probably be fine in a few minutes. “Why did you never change your name?” Hardy suddenly asked.

To say the question surprised Ellie was an understatement. “Uh, what?” she stalled, keeping the floating road in focus.

“You’re not married to Joe anymore, right? Tess couldn’t wait to change her name back to Henchard after the divorce, so… why didn’t you?”

“Well,” Ellie tried to joke, “first of all, Ellie Henchard sounds terrible.” He gave her a glare. “But I… It’s just that…” Why hadn’t she? 

Joe’s name came with so many memories, some of them fond but all of them turned bitter and stale now that she knew the truth about her ‘happy marriage’. She would have every right to change her name back, certainly more than Tess, and whenever people asked, she usually said it was so much easier with the boys having the same name as she did and all that, but it was just a convenient lie. 

She thought about telling him that exact lie but something stopped her. “I wanted it back,” she finally admitted. “I’ve always loved being Ellie Miller. It has such a nice ring – four L and the i-e-combination and nearly the same letters, and I’ve been a Miller for so long. There are of course the boys, I didn’t want them to have a different name than I do, but that’s not the main reason. I… I think I wanted to claim it as mine.” Maybe even steal if from Joe, take that away from him after he’d taken everything she’d believed him to be from _her_. “It’s a common enough one. Doesn’t have definitive recognition-factor, so I thought – why bother. It’s my name. I wanted it when I married Joe and now, I want to keep it and I’m not giving it back!”

She kept her gaze on the road fiercely. From the corner of her eyes, she saw him look at her for a moment before he turned back towards his notes in his lap. “Good,” he said. “Barrett’s way too harsh. It doesn’t suit you.”

Ellie bit her lip but couldn’t quite contain her smile. That had been a compliment, she was very sure. A weird one, a very hidden one, but a compliment nonetheless. “Appreciate that, Sir,” she said, straight-faced and when he frowned at her suspiciously, she kept on staring at the road. He probably got it.

O o o o O O o o o O

While she was most often to be found at Jocelyn Knight’s house these days, Maggie still had her apartment in town. She said it was the key to a successful relationship with Jocelyn to have space for herself, otherwise she’d have murdered her half a year ago.

When they stepped inside, slightly damp from the rain, Maggie already had tea out for them. “I’m really sorry, I wish I could tell you more. I’ve never spoken with Phyllis before last week and I have to admit that I’ve not been aware of her. She’s quite a big deal, though, I gather?”

“Possibly,” Ellie answered. The tea on the table would have to stay there, otherwise her bladder might explode. Hardy sipped from his. He either had a better storage capacity for liquid waste, or his body didn’t run on blood but rather stout tea. It would actually explain a lot. “But that’s not what we’re concerned about.”

“You know what happened to me last week?” His casual pose was deceptive, projecting calm and confidence in front of Maggie. She would probably not see the tension in his jaw or the deliberate refusal to avert his eyes from her as a mask to cover his deep discomfort. Ellie was surprised to realize that _she_ did. When had she come to know her grumpy, grouchy, rude and abrasive boss so well to understand he’d rather hide under the table than sit here and chat with Maggie Radcliffe? She hadn’t even been aware of it until now. 

Probably around the same time her boss had turned into her friend.

Maggie nodded. “Well, the official statement, yes. Someone attacked you?” Her eyes swept over him, quick and casual, but didn’t linger. “You’re not sick again, are you?”

Hardy shook his head. “No, it’s fine. No damage.” Ellie felt herself scowl but quickly hid her face behind one of the biscuits Maggie had placed on the table. “But I can’t remember what or when or why and we don’t know who could have done it. Phyllis Simons is somehow connected – she might have seen something or maybe I saw something in connection with her. The detectives on the case are certain it’s not the latter, so we’re focusing on the first assumption for now.” 

Again, the deliberate choice of words. Who’d have thought that Hardy was so good at playing with the press! Usually, he avoided limelight and press-conferences like the plague, but he seemed _vey_ cross with Jacobs. Ellie wondered if that twat had said anything to him that she was unaware of. 

“Well.” Maggie frowned. “I wouldn’t know about that. Sorry. When she was here, she asked me about the Latimer-case and the rape-investigation last year. She said her focus was about crimes in small communities and its impact on the society, but she didn’t even make notes about anything I had to offer in that regard. I mentioned that she might want to talk to Paul – Coates,” she clarified mostly for Hardy, “but she wasn’t interested.” Maggie took a biscuit and frowned while she nibbled the edges off. “Thinking back, I believe she was mostly interested in the Winterman-case but not enough to ask the right questions.”

“What would those be?” Ellie asked. 

“Oh, she never asked about Michael Lucas, for example. That would have been a good hook for a story, right? Perfect, actually. No, she was … she asked if she could see my notes during the investigation, what I knew that hadn’t been in the papers. Sadly, I did have a lot on my mind at the time with that insufferably smug cunt of an editor.”

Ellie nearly chocked on her bickie at the harsh words. Maggie smiled at her, satisfied of the reaction she’d caused and Hardy looked completely unbothered and slightly amused. Bastard. 

“Is that of any help?” 

Hardy sighed and put down his mug. “Truthfully – not really. But thank you for talking to us. It was a lot less unpleasant than being at the dentist this time.” And with that oh-so-friendly punchline, he stood and smiled and left the house, leaving Ellie no option as to apologize quickly and rush after him, followed out by Maggie’s loud cackle.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it's Tuesday - two for today ;-)

“For Christ’s sake, what kind of detective is that giant _twat_ outside? Did he win his badge in a lottery?” Hardy slammed the door to his office so hard that the windows rattled and one of the blinds fell off.

“Grabbed it with a claw-crane, more like it,” Ellie muttered while she refused to pick up what he had destroyed. She wasn’t his mother. “I take it the talk with him didn’t go well?”

With a heavy sigh, Hardy dropped into his chair and leaned back hard against the backrest so he was nearly horizontal. “You can say that out loud. I don’t even know why I bothered.” All his anger had vanished. If there were pictures in the dictionary, his would appear right next to the word ‘defeated’.

“Oh, I know why. You were trying to do the right thing and update one of our colleagues about developments and information he would need for his case. It’s professional and courteous and absolutely the right thing to do. If he dismissed it – he did, didn’t he?” Hardy nodded, twisting the chair left and right, right and left. “Well, if he dismissed it, it’s his own bloody fault when he ultimately fails and we send him home with his dick between his legs. What did he say?”

Hardy took a deep, deep breath and let it out with a weary chuckle. First, she thought he would tell her but, in the end, he just shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s see what we have.” He turned around and sat up to face her, looking tired and worn. No wonder. With no sleep last night, Ellie would look like a scarecrow, too. “Did Harford find my car?”

“Ah, she’s out for lunch right now. I texted her, she said she’s on her way back and she has something but wouldn’t tell me what. Should I call her?”

“No, better let her have lunch or she might bite. Okay – how certain are we that Phyllis Simons is somehow connected with me waking up in a field?” 

“Well, so far we only have your word that it was your car on the CCTV from the rental. I do believe you but it’s not much to go on, officially.”

“Right. Well… that’s crap, isn’t it? If we don’t have a connection there for certain, everything else we based on it is useless.”

“I wouldn’t say useless, Sir. It may not be much but we now know that she was interested in Broadchurch and the surrounding area. She didn’t come here for a holiday randomly, as Jacobs seems to be stuck on. That’s not useless!”

“Yah, but it’s also not relevant to what happened to me if we have no clear connection of the two events. And if we don’t have any connection, we don’t have any business poking around in _’Rob_ ’s case.”

“Oh, right.” Ellie sucked on her tongue and wriggled her nose. “Well. If it’s not connected, we only have the traces from your skin and clothes. Which … are pretty much useless.” She sagged. “Leaves and grass that’s so common it could be from my own garden, cotton-fibres that are from a cheap sheet, probably a pillowcase. A drug that cannot be identified, a bump to the head that didn’t cause a concussion but was enough to knock you out. Well – rewind that. It might have only been enough to make you drowsy. We don’t know when the drug was administered.”

He was wagging a pen, once more twisting the chair. “Right.”

“We know someone put you into that field. We know from the bent stalks that they must have walked. There are no footprints, too much grass and it was too dry the days before. Uhm – no drag-marks, so you were carried.”

“Well, that’s something, right? Would have to be two people to carry me, I’m not exactly small.”

She looked him up and down. “Well, you’re skinny. A fireman’s carry might have done the trick, too.” He slumped. “But two people _is_ likely. There were two different kinds of handwriting on you.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Really?” 

“Uh – yes? Did you not look at the pictures?”

His face closed off for a second before he shook his head. “Didn’t think…. Well. Didn’t think.” He opened the folder and looked at one of the prints. Ellie hadn’t put all of them in there, most were still on the USB-drive and of course on the server. The ones on paper were mostly close-ups of the words and lettering, only suggesting that they were written on skin by the occasional appearance of hair or freckles. “Hm.” He frowned, then put on his glasses. 

“Anything?”

“Nah. Thought maybe I’d recognize the handwriting, but…” he shook his head and rubbed his face with both his hands. His shirt had slipped up at the motion and his bruised wrists were visible beneath the white cotton. Ellie tried not to stare but this was the first opportunity to see how they were faring. The lines on his right wrist were now mostly greenish-yellow while the skin directly around them was purpling a little. The left wrist was still covered with gauze, suggesting it looked worse or he wouldn’t bother to put it on after every shower.

They were just bruises, Ellie thought, pulling her gaze away and onto the timeline she’d started on the whiteboard while Hardy had talked to Jacobs. Just bruises. They’d fade and heal and while they might leave scars, they didn’t mean anything. 

That wasn’t true, though, was it? Because if they didn’t have any meaning, why would he try to keep them hidden? No, the lines around his wrists stood for a moment of helplessness and violence against him, at the very least an utter invasion of privacy and at worst a threat of something more, a very unsubtle ‘think about all the things we could have done’. Without a memory attached, the scribbling on his skin could mean anything and everything and they had been deliberately not stopped at his waistband. She frowned. 

“Miller?”

Ellie looked up and into his concerned eyes and just had to give him a fond smile. “Sorry, Sir. It’s just… if we go with our theory that you saw something connected to Phyllis, this,” she pointed to the picture on his desk, “doesn’t add up. This is not random. It may be a clever way to divert our attention, but it feels very personal. Why so much? Why not just write one rude word? Why take so much time and effort to do _that_ instead of… I don’t know, making you look like a fool or even leave you tied to a tree or something. This doesn’t make sense if it was an attack by a random stranger.”

He blinked at the wall without saying anything for what felt like a long time. 

“Sir? You don’t agree?”

With a weary sigh, he turned back towards her. “No. I mean – yes, I agree. Bit of a disturbing thought that someone dislikes me that much. And it doesn’t bring us any further. We were at this stage already. With no results.”

She sighed herself now and conceded with a nod. “Yeah, I remember.” A niggling thought scratched at the back of her conscience and Ellie crossed her eyes until everything was blurry in hopes of getting it out of its hiding place. 

Before she could grasp it, Katie knocked and slipped in without invitation, the thrill of discovery all over her face. “I put out an APB for your car with the stolen plates,” she said instead of apologizing for just barging in. “But even better: I know where they stole the plates from – and I have them on tape!”

O o o o O O o o o O

There were two people. From the built, it looked like either a man and a slender woman or a man and a very slender … other man. They wore dark clothes with hoods over their heads and while they didn’t look up even once while they were unscrewing the plates from an old, worn-down car at a dairy-farm a few miles away from the field Hardy had woken up in, something about them seemed familiar to him.

He stared at the grainy pictures of two people carelessly committing an offense because they were sure that they were unobserved. If it hadn’t been for the farmer being concerned about vandalism, they wouldn’t have ever been seen.

“I followed the plates and they led to a Mrs Moira Beakley, who’d passed away five years ago. Hadn’t driven the thing since her eyesight started failing about – uh, about eight years back. Her daughter married Norton Mackowski and they just used the old car for when they drove on the farm-property. It’s not been roadworthy for ages, has not been registered anymore – just luck that I found the old owner. I drove over and he showed me the car and was completely surprised that the plates had been changed – he wouldn’t have noticed anytime soon.” Harford was looking mighty pleased with herself, and Hardy had to admit that her pride was well-earned. “He had security-tapes,” she grinned.

“Good work,” he told her. “That was really good thinking.”

“So, now we have the connection. It’s your car on the rental-company’s tapes and that connects the two cases without a doubt.” Miller gave a decisive nod and smiled at Harford, probably meaning to be friendly and encouraging but looking a bit forced. “Well done, Katie. Now… do we tell Jacobs?”

Hardy groaned and let himself slump onto his desk. It was probably highly unprofessional, but he was so goddarn _tired_ of that fuckwit. Last time he’d been in his makeshift office, he’d barely restrained himself from snapping insults or throwing a mug at him. Maybe he should just let Miller do the honours – she was a lot better at a proper bollocking than he was. 

“Do we have to?” Harford asked. “I mean, I know he’s sort of in charge of the Simons case, but this isn’t really that, is it? It’s about who attacked you, Sir, and he didn’t even acknowledge the possibility that the two are connected in the last staff-meeting. I don’t really see the need to inform him.” She crossed her arms defensively, making a stand for her opinion but prepared to be shouted at for it. He liked it. 

Sighing, he sat upright again. “We have to. Just because he’s a dick…” He caught himself. “A very self-indulgent individual doesn’t mean we are. We can be the bigger people here, can’t we, Miller?” She stared at him, slightly puzzled, and Hardy took out a piece of paper. “We will, very professionally, leave him a note about the new development.” He squiggled the words on the paper, folded it and wrote Jacobs’s name and held it up. “Anyone?”

Miller snatched it out of his hand. “I’ll make sure he sees it on his desk,” she grinned evilly, then tried to hide it quickly from Harford. She shouldn’t have bothered –DC Harford either pretended to or really didn’t notice anything and stepped in front of the timeline when Miller left the office to deliver the note. 

“So,” she said “we have Phyllis Simons rent a trailer on the 26th. She speaks to Stevens and Radcliffe on the March 1st but where she went or what she did before or after Sunday is not confirmed. Due to check out on the 4th of March – Wednesday – but doesn’t turn up. We get informed on the 5th and find out she doesn’t exist under the name Susanne Smith. We dally about a bit, think it’s nothing serious. On the same day, you, Sir, come to in the field.” She scratched her chin while Miller, returned sans note but with tea, took over. 

“Right. Since we now have definitive proof that your car was used to get Phyllis’s rental back to the agency, we know that you were already unconscious at that time. Uhm… that’s not helpful because it was three-fifty, so there’s a lot of time in-between.” Five and a half hours, to be precise. A lot of time for a lot of things to have happened… He jerked himself back to the present. “We also know the trailer was not yet empty on the 4th because the receptionist checked through the window.” Miller stopped. “Do we know that for sure?”

Harford pulled out her notebook. “Well, he described what he’d seen through the window. Suppose he could be lying, but why?”

“Maybe he was involved?”

“Uhm.” DC Harford looked a bit flustered at the possibility that she’d overlooked something that basic, but she pulled herself together and thought things through. “He could be, of course. But I’ve got the security-tapes and we can easily check if he’d left his place at the reception for a suspicious amount of time.”

“Do that,” Hardy decided. “Better be sure before we rule it out completely. But for the sake of getting further, let’s assume first he’s not involved.” At Miller’s astonished face, he scowled. “Yes, I know that’s not my usual frame of thinking but I’m tired and I want to go home so let’s just shut up and go on, yes?”

He ignored the grin Miller shot Harford. Great. Can’t stand the woman half the time but when it’s about bonding over their cranky boss, then they’re suddenly best friends. 

“Okay. So, whatever happened to Phyllis must have happened the night between the fourth and the fifth, presumably before three-fifty. Or rather whatever I supposedly saw happened then. Since we don’t know Simons was even present.” _In whatever state of health,_ he thought but didn’t say out loud. It was highly likely she was dead. That whatever she’d been researching in Broadchurch had been the death of her and that her murderer had been observed doing something – killing her? Getting rid of the body? – by him. “Does that help us any?” he asked, a little lost in between all the facts. His head has slow and sluggish from the lack of sleep and he wished he could be in bed right now. He stood up to get a change of position and wake himself up a bit.

“Not that much, no,” Miller said. “But – we do know she’d been here for research. Whatever it is she was interested in, it involved at least one of the recent bigger crimes here. Either Danny’s murder,” she swallowed, as she would usually do whenever that one came up, “or the Winterman-case. So… which one is more likely to interest an investigative reporter from The Guardian?” 

“That depends on the focus, I suppose,” Harford mused. “Both of the cases could have reached further than we were aware of. Joe Miller,” she very pointedly didn’t look at Miller and Hardy felt himself step a miniscule amount closer to his friend without knowing what he wanted to accomplish with it, “might have been doing something noteworthy wherever he is – in which case the Latimer-case could be of interest for a reporter again.”

“He’s in Liverpool,” Hardy supplied. “And we checked on him very early on as a possible suspect for the attack on me. He’s been entirely unremarkable, but of course if a reporter knew something the police doesn’t, we wouldn’t know that.” Did that sentence make sense? It had in his head, but he wasn’t so sure it worked out loud.

“Right,” Harford nodded. “So it’s not impossible. Apart from that, the other was a rape, and it’s of course possible he attacked more women when he was in university. Phyllis might have come across that and investigated it further.” 

Miller stepped in now. “We checked with Bournmouth Police. He seemed to have” her nose scrunched up in disgust, “behaved himself there and only committed his rapes when he was back in this area. Again – doesn’t rule it out completely.” 

Hardy tapped the desk with the frame of his glasses in thought. “The Latimer-case has been through the media for a long time. Doesn’t seem that there’s anything left to report on. Also, wouldn’t she have asked Radcliffe more than just the basics? She wrote a book about Danny and his life, after all. Would seem like a very juicy source.”

The two women nodded nearly in unison without noticing. Outside of his door, someone yelled for PC Daniels, something about a traffic-accident. DS Hagarth laughed at something and Jacobs strolled past without acknowledging anyone or anything beside his own ego. God, had he looked that pretentious when he’d been on the Latimer-case?

“Not half as much,” Miller said and he blinked to see that the two of them were alone now. He hadn’t even noticed Harford leave. “In comparison, you were a cuddly Teddy bear.” She smiled at him and he groaned. 

“Shit, I’m knackered. Did I say that out loud?”

She shook her head. “No, but by now, I know how to read your scowls. They’re very telling, those scowls. Is it a Scot-thing, or is that just a Hardy-thing?”

“Wish I knew.” He scratched his scalp. It needed a wash. “Right. Where did Harford go?”

“To the loo and then on to check the security-tapes because we were getting nowhere. Sir– do I need to remove you from the case for today for endangering yourself now? You look like shit and if your brain is this slow, you’re not even useful. Get home.”

Christ, he hated when she was right. “Yah. I think that’ll be best.” He stood to gather his things and looked at his watch. It was late enough to not be frowned on for leaving and if he went straight home, he could be there even before Daisy and cook, for once. He sent a quick text to tell her he was on his way now and was just pulling on his jacket when he saw Miller’s indulgent smile. “Wha`?” 

“Just… I think it’s really nice that you are so considerate to Daisy.” He scowled – of course he would be! She was his daughter and if she needed a little sense of control for her life right now, what kind of shitty father would deny her? “Oh, don’t get snappy with me!” Miller frowned. “It’s just … nice. That’s all. It’s a compliment, bloody hell, why can’t you just take it?”

“Well, it’s a bloody rude one.” He muttered. “See you tomorrow, Miller.” At the door, he stopped suddenly in his tracks. “We should check out Humphries’s case. There were a lot more open ends than with the Latimer one.” 

He slipped out and made his way home. Inside the building, he hadn’t noticed that the rain had stopped, making way for a brilliant blue sky with sharp, golden light from the slowly setting sun and he was looking forward to the walk. It wasn’t far and it might either clear his head or make him more tired so he could drop right into sleep. Both options seemed fantastic.


	10. Chapter 10

It wasn’t long after she’d sent Hardy home that Ellie and Katie got roped in with the rest of the staff to help separating two rowdy groups of football-fans who’d come here separately to complain about the other group, respectively. When they’d found their offenders at the station, they’d started arguing and shouting and shoving and it escalated from there. 

The whole thing ended when Ellie waded in between the men and whistled sharply on her fingers. “SHUT UP!” she yelled. “I’ve had about enough for today, you stupid, overgrown toddlers! If you cannot behave the age you are, you get out.” One of them – Archibald Young, she recognized – started to speak but she was too angry to let him. “OUT! Sort yourself out in front of the door – separately, or you’ll all share a nice cell for the night, and let me tell you Archi, Linda will _not_ be pleased with you! If you can be civil, you’re all very welcome to make your complaints at the desk. If not – fuck off.”

Everyone was quiet in the hall. Everyone, and Ellie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 

“Right. Now, Bob? I’m going home. If they make a ruckus again, call this one’s,” she pointed at Philip Morris “mom. I just bet Helen would love to come collect her _‘boy’_ from the station?” Morris avoided her gaze and pleadingly shook his head. Good choice, she thought. Helen Morris was eighty-five and fierce as an old barn-cat. “Good night, gentlemen.”

She took her purse, smiled at Katie with maybe a hint of triumph and maybe a little bit of pride but a lot more goodwill than she’d have had for her this morning and went to get her car. It was a nice day outside, but she wanted a shower and her couch and maybe she could persuade Tom to watch something not superhero-related tonight. Then again, that rich bloke in the posh metal-suit was quite foxy, so maybe…

She collected Fred from Olly, who hardly looked up from his phone. He was probably already trying to get something on Jacobs, so she wouldn’t dare interrupt him now. Fred was asleep on the couch but he woke briefly when she bent down to gather him in her arms. “You’ve gotten big, Freddy,” she whispered against his sleep-mussed head and hitched him higher onto her hip. “Not much longer and I won’t be able to carry you.” Smiling, she brought him out to the car and put him in his kiddy-seat, where he fell asleep again immediately. For a moment, she wondered if Hardy had ever tucked Daisy into the car-seat or if that had all been left to Tess. Then she chuckled. Tess wasn’t the kind of person to just let someone get away with being a macho-bullshitting-bloke, and Hardy, despite his ridiculous grumpiness, was actually very much a family-man. 

A few years back, she would have betted her house that inside that angry Scottish shell was just another, even angrier Scot and only that. Now she was glad she hadn’t, because she’d been out of house and home otherwise. 

Her kitchen smelled of pizza when she entered. “Tom?” she called and there was a loud ‘yupp!’ from upstairs. At least this time, he’d put away the wrapping and switched off the oven, so just for now she’d let him have his dinner in front of the Playstation. “Well, Freddy, and what do I eat tonight, hm? I bet you already had chicken-nuggets at Olly’s, did you?” 

Fred rubbed his eyes with his fists. “An’ ice-cream,” he said and yawned. 

“Did you now! I guess I’ll have to talk to your cousin about ice-cream in the evening again, huh? Well, up you go. Brush your teeth and go get into your jimjams, I’ll be right up to read your bedtime-story, okay?” 

Sleepily, Fred stomped up the stairs and she winced as she heard the bathroom-door slam shut. A look into the fridge didn’t supply any great surprises – how much would it cost to borrow Daisy for a week? – and Ellie opted for a vanilla-yogurt. She was hungry enough for something else but too tired to be bothered. Maybe she could eat a packet of crisps later, if her bottomless pit upstairs had left any. 

“DONE, MOMMY!”, Fred yelled and she dragged herself upstairs to get him to bed so she’d be able to get her own rest for the evening. The choice of story this week was _Elmer_ , which delighted her to no end. After _Where the Wild Things are_ , she had half-dreaded Fred would not want cute and adorable anymore. She wondered if Fred would like the _Redwall_ series, as Tom had done when he’d gotten older, or if she needed to find something else. Beth might have suggestions, and she could always google something, Ellie supposed. 

Had Hardy read Daisy children’s books? He must have. Right?

When Elmer was back home and Fred asleep, Ellie knocked on Tom’s door and entered. She’d learned to _knock_ and wait at least five seconds so she wouldn’t have to know too much about the teenager under her roof. But Tom was just playing a normal game where things got shot and other things tried to kill his … running figure and she stood in the doorway to watch the proceedings for a bit. 

“Is that a woman?” she asked when the screen allowed a closer look at the character he was playing. 

“Yupp,” Tom said, eyes still glued to the telly. It had been a hard-fought battle until he’d been allowed a telly in his room after the crap he’d pulled with the porn and then with running away to Liverpool, but in the end, she’d relented under conditions. So far, he was keeping them, at least to her knowledge. “That’s Thrilla,” he added after killing some… thing? with a mighty sword. “She’s got the best features for this level, with the magic and – aw, wow, no! That was close!... and the sword and the level-eight shielding.”

“Riiiight,” Ellie nodded, not entirely sure what he’d just been talking about. “Of course, that makes sense.”

“I’ll switch back to Morlock later, he’s better with the running and jumping and has level-twelve strength.”

“Ah, good. Equal opportunity-game, then.” He nodded but she wouldn’t swear he’d even heard her. “Well, make sure you bring the plate back down and please – change your sheets before your got to bed. I’ll check!”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Tom muttered, already completely entranced with the cape-clad woman on the screen. Right. At least the graphics where pretty, even if she’d have preferred less blood-spatters. Cringing, Ellie walked out and to her room where she slipped into comfortable clothes and woolly socks and packed herself away downstairs in front of the telly. 

At ten-thirty, she startled awake from the flushing toilet upstairs. Something crinkled under her head and with a wince, she carefully removed the crisp-package and most of its content from her hair and clothes. Well, shower-time, apparently. Ellie sipped her now-cold tea to get rid of the disgustingly stale taste in her mouth – didn’t work, needed toothbrush – and cleaned up just enough so she wouldn’t cry when she came back in here in the morning before taking herself to bed. 

Out of habit, she checked her phone – no calls, but a message from Hardy. __. Well, presuming he meant ‘Humphries’ and ‘tomorrow’, this wasn’t urgent and she sneaked to the bathroom after checking on Fred and if Tom had kept his promise and switched off the game at ten. He had, or at least he had switched it off when she checked, so she chose to believe in him for now. After a hot but quick shower, Ellie wearily slipped between her sheets, happy to finally be in bed.

Where she then lay awake, thoughts twirling and turning as to why Hardy had decided Humphries – did he mean Leo, in prison? Or his father at the twine-factory? Or just the factory? – was worth looking at closer. Had he thought of something? Remembered something, maybe? Had Katie called, or SOCO, with more evidence? 

No, they wouldn’t. They all knew she was the lead officer for this case, and while Hardy might forget, _they_ sure wouldn’t. Brian had been much too gleeful when she’d told him that it was her case and Hardy just second fiddle. 

Ellie smiled in the darkness. _Her case_! Jenkinson thought she was the best detective! Brian had congratulated her on being ‘boss’ and she was, at least for a while! But the elation slipped away sooner than she wanted but slower than was appropriate, really. This wasn’t a competition she was winning; it was a case of assault against a police-officer, against her boss and friend. Ellie should be ashamed of herself!

She wasn’t. 

“For Christ’s sake,” she muttered and grabbed her phone, calling the number without looking at the screen. It was on speed-dial anyway. 

_”What?”_ he hissed, _”Miller?”_

It only occurred to her that he might have been asleep when she heard the rustle of sheets through the phone. He’d been so tired – he should be! “Sorry, sorry. It’s not important, go back to sleep!” she hurried to say, ready to press disconnect. 

_”I swear, if you hang up I’ll come over and lean on the bell!”_ he grumbled and while it was unlikely he would do that, it wasn’t _impossible_ so she put her finger away. _”Whaddaya want?”_

“I’m so sorry to wake you up, Sir. Did I wake you up?” She sure hoped so, or he would be of no use tomorrow. 

_”Yah, course you did. Wait a second.”_ She heard more rustling and a quiet murmur and then the padding of bare feet on a carpet. A door opening then closing and finally the unmistakable sound of someone letting themselves fall down on a couch. _”Now, what is it?”_ His voice was louder now. 

Apparently, Daisy was still sleeping in his bed. That would be weird, wouldn’t it? Having a teenager next to you in bed? What if Tom decided he needed to sleep in her bed nowadays? Of course she would let him if he needed it, but… Well – she was sure Daisy smelled a lot better. Teenage-boys were _rank_!

“Ah, sorry again. Why do you want to go to Humphries, and which Humphries are we talking about here?” 

Hardy groaned. _”You wake me up at… half past midnight to ask that?”_

“Did I? Sorry! But it’s your bloody fault for sending me the message so late! I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t figure out what you wanted there. Did you remember something?”

_”No.”_ It was too clipped to be casual. It still bothered him that his brain was not cooperating, and Ellie thought she could emphasize. Having a hole in the memory and knowing something important had been where there was nothing now would be… well, terrifying. At the very least very disturbing. _”But I don’t want to go to the station before we go there and risk getting dragged in with Jacobs’s stupid hunt for a mob-paid contract-killer. I swear, I never met that man but he behaves as if I’ve personally pissed in his coffee.”_

Ellie huffed a laugh. “Did you?” It earned her a chuckle.

_”Not that I recall.”_ there was a pause in which Ellie could hear him scratch his beard and then sigh. _”He called yesterday, after hours. Woke me up. Wanker.”_

“Did he give you shit about leaving? I hope you told him that I sent you away by the Superintendent’s orders? Or did you play the martyr again and let him roll all over you?” 

_”No, nothing of that sort. He just called to ask where I was because – and I’m not kidding – someone had changed his password on the computer.”_

She burst out laughing at that and had to hide her face behind her arm to not wake one of the boys. Through the phone, Ellie could hear amused grumbling and it didn’t help keep her laughter down. 

“Sorry,” she finally managed. “Do you know who did it? I might have to bring them a cake tomorrow.” 

_”No,”_ he said and he sounded like he was smiling. Not often to hear that and rarer even to see it. _”No, but I’ll pitch in if you find out. But the bloody nerve of him to call me for something this petty! I wasn’t even there when it must have happened, and he calls me after nine to tell me about this horse-shit and haver on and on about how unprofessional everyone is and … seriously? What a knobheaded fuckwit.”_

Ellie nearly choked on her spit. She had heard Hardy swear more than once, quite regularly, to be precise, but hardly ever something so crude. “Can’t say I disagree,” she said after she’d recovered from the coughing. In fact, she wanted to nail that old cod against the nearest door – just what was that man thinking! First, he ignored Hardy and looked at him like he was stupid or that it was his fault that he’d been drugged and attacked, and now he called him late after hours to complain about the staff? Did he think Hardy had changed the password himself? “But honestly – what did you do to him that he dislikes you so much?”

“ _Nothing! I’ve never even heard of him before he came here. Tess doesn’t know him, either. I have no idea what’s gone into him. The only thing I can think of is that he read the Daily Herald and believed every word that was written.”_ He took a deep breath. _”Anyway, not important. Humphries tomorrow because it makes a bit more sense than anything to do with the Latimers or Joe. And I mean the factory.”_

“Alright.” Ellie yawned. “See you tomorrow then. I’ll come get you again, we don’t need two cars.”

_”Mine’s been stolen. Remember? Walked home yesterday. Good night, Miller.”_

“Night,” she replied but he’d already hung up. Ellie had just enough time to check her alarm for the morning and hook the phone to the charger before tiredness hit her like a rock and she was out like a light.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved the last chapter. Ellie is such a great character, and she deserved one all for herself. Still - if I were the reader, I'd want to get on with the show and therefor: another chapter! Ain't I the nicest?

When Miller’s car rolled up the hill to collect him, Daisy was just leaving for school. She had to take the bike today because Beth needed the car and Chloe had been dropped at school earlier already, but the weather was stable and the exercise would do her good. She would get a lift from Beth again tomorrow if the weather was shite. He might have to thank her for the taxi-service one of these days. Was chocolate appropriate? 

Daisy stood by his side and watched the road with him, arms crossed as if she were a sentinel standing guard for her charge. It warmed his heart despite the worry it caused. “There she is. See? I’ll be safe and sound,” he teased her and tried to supress his grin when Daisy rolled her eyes. 

“Yeah yeah. Joke about it, Dad, but you were just as bad when those boys were being shitty.” She kissed him on the cheek. “And yes, I know – language. Mom’s complaining that you’re a bad influence,” she added cheekily. 

“Oi, leave me out of this! I told you – no swearing around adults and your mom’s an adult, last I checked. If you can’t hold your end of the compromise, we’ll have to sit down and make a new one,” he warned. He was only half-joking, but really didn’t want to have to argue all the carefully constructed rules between them anew. 

“I was only joking,” she smiled. “She never said anything and I’m totally polite.” She kissed his cheek. “Love you, take care.”

“Love you, too.”

“Aww, Sir, this is entirely adorable,” Miller mocked when he slipped into the car and handed her a thermos with coffee. One more concession to Daisy: coffee was allowed for breakfast, so he usually had enough to make Miller happy, too. Daise’s selling argument had been that she shouldn’t have to suffer just because he didn’t like coffee anymore, and short of telling her that he’d never liked it and had just drunk it because it was there, he’d had to give in. He didn’t think his explanation would have really helped. 

“Shut up, Miller.” He was determined to enjoy this side of his daughter for as long as he could. It was bound to end too soon anyway, at the very latest when she was off to university. 

“Alright, fine. Grump,” she muttered but took a sip from the thermos to hide her smile. It was nice, seeing her smile. She had a great smile, he’d always thought, even back in the beginning when he’d hated that stupid great big smile of hers. He’d hated it mostly because he didn’t want to get involved with these people and just sit out his time until he got anywhere with Claire, but also because he’d known it would turn rarer and more guarded the further the investigation went. Murder did that to people, even to those who were not directly involved. If things had ended with a different man as the murderer, she might have been able to hold on to her slightly naïve and gentle view of her world, and he’d hated even then to have to be the one to teach her how not to trust, how not to take anything for granted and how to shut her emotions out of the investigation. 

It had made her a better detective, maybe, but it saddened him to know that the cheerful Ellie Miller from the first weeks now hid herself behind a harder, tougher shell. 

“So, what do we want to look at at Humphries?” she asked. “Do we think that the old Humphries is somehow involved? Do you think he could be angry enough for any of this?”

“No,” he admitted. His decision to go there had more to do with avoiding his office for a bit longer than with any concrete ideas. “Just thought we’ll check that area, see if we can come up with more theories.” It sounded lame, even to his own ears. “Just drive.”

Luckily, she didn’t press further and did, talking about the video-game Tom was obsessed with and something about a Thriller? 

It was halfway up to where the twine-factory was that he looked out and over the hilly fields and pastures beside them and saw a tree. Not a particularly big tree, or otherwise remarkable. He must have seen the tree before – they’d been at the factory more than once, after all. But something about it, a sense of recognition, seeing the leave-less trunk reaching towards the clouded sky jarred. 

“Miller…”

“… and do I have to feel bad that I prefer watching something splatter blood at the screen instead of knowing he’s watching porn? Because I do and- What?“

“Miller, stop.”

“Stop what? Talking about a video-game? Or about porn?”

“No, the car. Stop the car – I think… there’s something about the bloody tree over there!”

To her credit, she immediately rolled to the side. He was out of the car before she’d even turned off the motor, over the fence and halfway up to the tree when Miller finally caught up with him. “Wait, Hardy! What’s with that tree, what do you mean there’s something about it!”

He turned to wait for her. “I don’t know, but…” What if he was wrong? What if this was just a stupid tree and he was just being stupid by running across a stupid field and making Miller stop the car so suddenly for nothing? But he had to check because it was the first time since last week that there’d been that sense of recognition, this moment of ‘wait, I’ve seen this!’ that he’d hoped for for such a long time. 

If this turned out to be nothing, fine. But at least he’d have checked. 

With long strides, he reached the tree which wasn’t actually on the field as it had seemed but beside another road, a little off the main one towards West Milton. He stared at the two roads without really seeing them but knowing this was _something_. A car went by, towards Broadchurch coming from West Milton. It was easily visible from where he stood. 

He would be just as easily seen from there. 

“If someone was here, at this spot, anyone driving on the main road could see them. If it was dark and the car was running with the lights on, they’d be highly visible.” He was just saying aloud what his subconscious was shoving violently towards the front of his attention. “If the roads were nearly empty…”

“It would draw attention,” Miller finished. She stood beside him, following his gaze, silent and watchful and oddly calming. “This one,” she pointed at the road they were standing on, more a field track than a proper road. It had tarmac, but it was narrow and cracked and old. “Enters the big one there, can you see? By those bushes?” 

He followed her outstretched arm and sure, there was the turnoff not even half a mile from their position. Hardy looked back at the tree, then pulled his eyes down towards the ground. A few feet away from the trunk, to the right of where they stood, he spotted tyre-tracks beside the tarmac. “Miller.”

She walked over and bent to her knees, carefully removing leaves and grass from the tracks. “Do you think it could be?” she asked. “Could have been the farmer using this road. It’s narrow – bound to have people slip off the hard part and into the dirt.”

Hardy turned around towards the turnoff and took a few steps in that direction. He couldn’t see anything interesting, neither in the grass nor the asphalt but when he turned again to walk back, his brain screeched at him so hard it left him gasping for air. 

_He is walking into the light; pair of headlights from a car. ‘Are you alright? Need help?’ he asks, arm raised to shield his eyes from the brightness. ‘A lift maybe?’_

_A voice calls out. ‘Thank you, no. We’re fine. Just a flat.’ A woman’s voice, slightly nervous._

_‘If you’re sure? You could use my phone if you need, Ma’am, or I could call someone for you?’ He doesn’t want to scare her. Out here in the dark, with a flat tyre and a strange man approaching – of course she would be afraid. He’s close enough now to see that the car is a VW and that the woman is slender and tall. He can’t make out more than that and he smiles and_

“Sir!” He startled so hard when Miller’s hand touched his arm that he nearly knocked his elbow in her face. “Bloody hell, what’s wrong with you!” she grouched but stopped when she saw his face. “What’s wrong?”  
-  
“I’m … pretty sure I was here that night,” he said, looking once more towards the tree. “I was walking from here uphill and there was a car. Headlights on, motor off. A… a woman, she said she had a flat.” Wide-eyed, Miller grabbed for her notebook and a pen and started scribbling down what he’d told her. Hardy waited until she nodded before he continued. “I didn’t see her but the car was a VW.”

“What model?”

He grabbed his hair and pulled, trying to force more information out of the vice it was locked in. “I… I want to say a Passat but I’m not sure. Not like yours – older. I just remember the headlights and the logo on the radiator.”

“Okay – the headlights. Round or square?” 

“Square.” He was certain. 

“Colour?”

“Dark. Blue? Black – don’t know. Dark.” God, he felt like he should reach down inside his memories and just pluck information out, but there was a dark tar-pit inside his mind that clung to them and wouldn’t let go. “Shit, I don’t know.”

“It’s okay, this is fine,” Miller tried to reassure but he knew it wasn’t and it felt like he was lying or deliberately holding back. 

“God!”

“I’ll call SOCO.” She had her phone out already, pulling up the number. “The tyre-tracks at least are visible and clear – they should be able to- Oh, Brian! Hey, yes, it’s Ellie. Listen, we have a possible location for-“ 

He stopped listening and let his eyes roam about the field-track, following its path further away from the turnoff. When he looked back to where they’d left Miller’s car, he could see that this small track led right towards the middle of the V created by the two roads, the one towards West Milton and the other one to Humphries’s twine factory. As they moved further apart, they created a roadless, empty space between them. 

Nearly roadless, he corrected. “What’s at the end of this?” he asked when he heard Miller approach, done with the phone-call. 

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve never been on this path.” She pulled out her phone again and swiped a few times but huffed frustratedly after a minute. “No internet out here. What’s the use of bloody google-maps when there’s hardly ever reception where you would need them?” She turned towards the field they’d walked across. “I’ve got a map in my car. We could check?”

“Or,” he said, still staring into the distance, “we could just follow the road, see where it leads us.” Hardy shivered and hoped Miller hadn’t noticed. It wasn’t particularly cold, but the knowledge that this was the spot he’d been at before being knocked out and carried off sent a chill up his spine.

He’d been doing well for so long now that he’d been able to fool himself it didn’t affect him anymore. That the shocky state from when he’d woken had been due to the drugs in his blood and since they were now gone, he could be rational and perfectly fine. Slightly frustrated but basically fine.

Maybe the fact that his own face on CCTV had always come as a surprise or that reading his name in the files was startling should have been a hint that he wasn’t as alright as he thought he was. Maybe it had all been a big, fat lie he’d told himself and he hadn’t shaken off anything from this at all. Maybe he’d just shoved it down somewhere to deal with later, preferably never. Maybe he wasn’t really fine. 

But maybe that didn’t matter much because along with the chill came another, more familiar feeling: the thrill of the chase.

Whenever a new, heavy case came up, within all the real and deep sympathy for the victims and relatives and the lives contorted and destroyed and his desire to protect them there was also the less noble truth of the matter that he loved chasing criminals and that he enjoyed unpicking lies and following different threads to their conclusion. It was less admirable than being completely devoted to the cause, but in this moment, he didn’t feel the need to lie to himself. 

It was oddly freeing to shed his responsibility to others and concentrate on the riddle.

Well. There was still Phyllis, of course.

Rolling his eyes at himself, he shook off the strange gloom that had come over him. “Fancy a walk?” he asked Miller and she bit her lip indecisively but, in the end, nodded. 

“Just waiting for the uniforms. They should be here in” she peeked at her watch “five minutes. Can you hold on for that long?” she asked, teasing him with a twinkle in her eye and it was that more than her words that settled him inside his own skin again. 

“Guess I’ll manage,” he grumbled and hid his smile behind a pretended scowl. 

When the patrol-car arrived and they’d instructed the two PCs to secure the road as a possible crime-scene and find out to whom it belonged, they took off along the path. Miller kept a lookout for tracks and bent grass, placing little flags from the patrol-car where she found them while Hardy had his eyes glued to the distance. It looked like they were headed towards a small forest, or at least a sizable copse of trees. While he didn’t get the same shock of recognition and memory as he did earlier, the closer they got to the trees the more it felt like something important. 

“Like a Memory game,” he muttered and of course Miller picked up on it.

“What?” 

He sighed. “You know the thing, with the cards that you turn over? This is like that.”

She frowned, clearly trying to puzzle out his meaning. Good luck to her. “What’s like that?”

The moment before you turned over a card, the hovering over it, indecision between two, three or four cards that might hold the missing second image, being sure that it was one of these two, three or four but not _which_ one! That infinite moment of Schroedinger’s Cat, where each of the pieces might be the right one and the wrong one at once until you turned them over and saw for real if you missed. That’s what this was like. How could he explain that and make sense? 

“Just… feels the same.” He wrinkled his nose. “Like something’s here.” Of course, he could be completely off about this and this would be the wrong card they turned over, but as long as they didn’t know for certain, it could be and it could not be. “Think I should have stayed in bed,” he grumbled. “I’m not making sense even to myself.”

It made Miller laugh, a loud, explosive kind of laughter. Shocking, really, even though she’d laughed more than once around him. Well… maybe not like this. 

The forest was tiny, just a collection of trees really. Maybe … what, a hundred? Two-hundred? With lots of undergrowth that slung itself around their shoes and had them half-falling all the bloody time. Stupid brambles. 

“I never even knew this was here. It’s pretty,” Miller smiled up into the canopy of the gnarly trees, bare-branched but with the first hints of green. “Did you see the path there?” 

He did. It was a narrow, much-travelled trail that seemed to traverse the woods completely. It wasn’t created by a pair of people at night about eight days ago, that much he could see. “Deer-pass?” 

“Looks like it. Well-used, I’d say. Must be their hide-out for the day when – oh, there, do you see?” She pointed towards a dip in the ground in front of a small uprising, where two roe-deer were carefully watching them, white bottoms primed to show the direction if they decided there was a threat. As they watched, a third one stood and, apparently startled more than the other two, gave a sharp jerk of alarm and off the three went, white arses blinking in the gloomy light of the forest. 

Hardy followed their movement up the dip and over the edge of the crest, where all three suddenly veered left from their chosen path and headed off in another direction. 

“Did you see that?” Miller asked and he nodded, already looking for the best way to get there without having to struggle through the heavily overgrown shallow. 

“C’m on, let’s have a look at what scared them,” he said but Miller was already trudging along, dodging bramble-patches and spiky holly like a professional. 

It was a bit further than he’d thought and much harder to walk than it looked but they reached the crest and let their eyes swerve over the view. 

The forest was still small, but bigger than it had initially seemed. Where the parts they’d just walked through were full of brambles and holly and other things he didn’t recognize, it was less overgrown behind the crest. Dead leaves covered the ground and the trees were less twisted and taller now. If he had to guess, he’d say they were oaks. Daisy would know; he was just glad he could recognize holly. 

“Doesn’t look like there’s anything here. Just a bush,” Miller said, pointing to where the roes had swerved. “Maybe they just didn’t want to run into those pointy leaves.”

“Hm,” he agreed but kept his eyes at the group of green-leaved, bush-sized trees. Here and there, little red berries accentuated the green. “Better get back, see if SOCO’s there yet.” Hardy turned to retrace his steps and his gaze fell into the dip they’d just rounded. “Aw hell, no.”

From where they’d started, the shallow was so heavily covered in greenery that it had seemed impermeable. From this side, it wasn’t. Beneath one of the slightly taller hollies was a pile of leaves and branches, disturbed by animals, probably foxes or birds. Whatever it had been, it had uncovered an arm clad in a bright-blue shirt and pulled it out from under its covering layer and he couldn’t quite tear his eyes away from the chewed-on hand that was clearly visible. 

Hardy felt himself blink and the image wavered, the leaves turning into muddy water and the hand getting smaller in front of his eyes. The torn-off flesh of its palm transformed into fish-bitten fingers, bones visible beneath the pale remains of muscle and skin. He swallowed hard and was very, very distantly aware that Miller was on the phone again, giving him space and time to pull himself together. 

He appreciated it. 

Like a cup of tea, only more so. 

With a slight smile, he was able to pull himself off the brink and back to the present and his job. “Sorry,” he murmured and turned to Miller, who smiled at him with that soft, kind light around her eyes. Right. Apparently, he was now ‘fragile’. Oh joy. 

The card had been turned over, and it was a match.


	12. Chapter 12

When SOCO arrived in the woods, Ellie and Hardy had found tracks that might have been made by humans, a few uprooted bramble-branches and some squished early vegetation. They hadn’t gone into the ditch out of fear of destroying evidence or complicate the work for SOCO, if that were even possible for a week-old scene out in the forest. 

With the crime-scene team there to tell them where to step, they made their way to the body after she’d been cleared of the debris on top of her. Ellie found it hard to reconcile the corpse with Phyllis Simons. It was a woman with long, blond hair in a ponytail, so she seemed to be the likeliest victim, but only the autopsy would be able to confirm it for certain. Hardy had gotten close to the coroner, looking slightly paler than usual and Ellie was glad she didn’t have to be right next to them. The smell was quite horrible even from where she stood now that the body had been uncovered and turned over and she could see very well that it was already in the rotting phase. Which would be bad enough to look at with the blue-green skin and the dried-up mucosa, but what really upset her stomach was that animals had started gnawing on Phyllis – well, the so-far-unknown person – and there were rather big parts missing from her face and hands and probably other places, too. When they’d turned her, a group of mice had fled from out of her clothes.

Hardy stood from his crouch – he was a lot braver than Ellie; she’d have never been able to crouch that close! – and made his way over to her. From up close, she could see the same look he’d had in the hospital after he’d been catalogued as evidence. A bit haunted, slightly sick, but mostly detached. 

“You okay?” she asked reflexively, biting her lips when she remembered that he was probably not going to respond to such a stupid question. 

“Looking back, I reverse my judgement.” He turned and walked off, looking towards her with raised eyebrows to hurry her along. Ellie trudged after him, up the ledge and then back towards the entrance of the forest. She was waiting for more but only when they’d stepped into the relative brightness outside of the woods did Hardy stop for a moment to let her catch up with his longer stride. 

He grimaced. “I think I’m glad now that they didn’t leave Pippa out in the open,” was all he said until they reached the car, and Ellie recalled her lectures about decomposition and autolysis and colonisation by insects and thought that she might have to be glad, too, that Joe had put Danny on the beach.

“Good thing it’s only early March,” she said, unlocking her car. By the disgust on his face, Ellie was pretty sure he understood her meaning. They slipped onto their seats and she started the car and, by unspoken agreement, set it back towards Broadchurch.

“We’re assuming this is Phyllis Simons, right?” Hardy asked after a few miles. 

“I think we should, yeah.”

“Okay. And if we believe my spotty recollection, I was here, too. So – either whoever it was had been heading towards the site or were on their way back.”

“Are you sure it was more than one?”

“Woman was slender, even beneath the jacket. Doubt she’d have been able to carry me anywhere. Also said ‘we’ when I asked if she were alright.” He stopped, looking pained. “At least I think that’s how it went. Still don’t know if that was true or not.” Ellie wondered why he was so reluctant to believe his memory. He’d not doubted Trish’s recount of her ordeal at Axehampton House. Then she remembered that for a long time, memories of Joe would pop up that were clear signs of his depravity, assuring her that Beth’s accusations had been right, that she must have _known_. Except most of those memories had been false. Either the events had never occurred or they’d occurred differently than her brain had insisted.

That probably explained it. Believing in a stranger’s version of events was much easier than believing in your own mind, especially when you know for a fact that brains can be tricky and memories plain wrong. The brain tried to deceive you every day, and it was one more thing that made detective-work so bloods difficult.

“Right,” she continued the conversation. “And we actually do know there’s at least two, from the tape at the rental-agency and where they unscrewed the tags. So – two people. You were here, you said you walked towards the lights of the car so that means it would have been facing towards the main road. Suggests they were on their way back.” Ellie chewed on her lower lip and went to overtake a lorry in front of her that was going too bloody slow. “Does that mean anything more than just that?”

Hard sighed. “It means that – assuming I was truly there and not making up fairy-tales – I walked towards a car that had a flat. I must have left my own car somewhere on the field-road, so we now have me and two unknown people and two cars on that track. There might be evidence. Someone must have driven my car away; I would have been right in their way otherwise. Why knock me out, though? They could have just let me drive off?”

“Did you tell them you were a police officer?” 

It took him a moment to answer and when he did, it was with reluctance. “I don’t think so. But I’m really not sure at all.” 

Ellie frowned and took the turn into Broadchurch. “Well, if they’d just let you go back, they might have feared you’d remember them once the body was found.”

“Yah. But if they hadn’t knocked me out, the body wouldn’t have been found for a long time.”

“So they were stupid? I mean, that’s entirely possible, right?”

Hardy wrinkled his nose. “I suppose…” but Ellie interrupted.

“Oh, but maybe they weren’t? Who would remember a car with a flat on a side-road, weeks or months later and connect it with a corpse in the forest? A police-officer! So, they did know your job – either you told them, or they knew you and knew you’d recognize them! Which would also very much play in favour with all the body-painting they did on you. I _said_ that it feels personal!”

Ellie grinned triumphantly, very pleased with the theory. They’d arrived in the carpark for the station and she turned off the engine and nearly missed his quiet response. “Sure does feel personal.” It made her joy taste slightly stale, remembering that what she’d flippantly called ‘body-painting’ had been very invasive and had been done with spite and degradation in mind. 

She decided to let it stand as it was anyway. He didn’t like fussing and any kind of apology would be waved off as unnecessary coddling, so he could very well deal with it alone if that’s what he wanted. 

Still, once they reached CID, she went and made both of them a cup of tea and stole three bickies from Orrin’s package and gave him two, pretending she’d already eaten one on the way to his office. 

It wasn’t fussing when she really shouldn’t eat more than one biscuit anyway.

O o o o O O o o o O

Right after she’d reached the office and dumped the mug and the biscuits on Hardy’s table, Katie burst in. “Sir, is it true? Did you find her?”

“Well, we found someone. The autopsy will have to confirm it but we believe that yes, it was Phyllis Simons.”

She sagged against the window as if someone had let the air out of her and Ellie felt a soft spot emerge underneath her annoyance. Maybe she could actually turn out to be a decent detective, one of these days. 

“Oh wow… I guess I somehow hoped she would just turn up one of these days, from Hawaii or something,” Katie murmured but pulled herself back up again. “What do we do now, Sir?” Then glanced at Ellie “Ma’am.” 

Hardy had leaned back into his chair and sipped his tea. Now, he looked up and there was a very happy smirk on his face before he bit into one of the biscuits. “Well, now this is a murder-investigation. And since it happened in our jurisdiction, this investigation falls clearly into our territory. I would suggest that it’s our case – well, to be more precise Miller’s and your case – now and that a certain resource-binding Detective Inspector should start packing his bags.” He looked at Ellie. “We should let him know that we now have one case instead of two. Do you want to?” He winked and Ellie grinned. 

“Oh, no, thanks. I think it will mean much more if it comes from you, Sir.” When she looked over to her, Katie gave her the thumbs up. It felt really, really good.

O o o o O O o o o O

“We don’t even know it’s her.” Jacobs, his Manchester DS Parihar, Hardy and Ellie were in Jacobs’ office and to say Jacobs was irritated would be like saying Monthy Python was sort of amusing. “As long as we don’t have confirmation, we should keep an open mind.”

“Of course we will, but who else could it be? Gender, size and hair matches Phyllis Simons, and there’s nobody else missing in the area who’d be a match.”

“That you know of!” Jacobs held up his finger right in front of Hardy and for a second, Ellie thought her boss would bite it off. Instead, he crossed his arms and took a deep breath while Jacobs continued to nag. “We can’t jump to conclusions here – this is a renowned journalist who vanished under mysterious circumstances, and I don’t think you’ve got the resources to solve all the possible international entanglements this could have. You can’t keep thinking small-scale about this. This is top-scale, Alec.” 

Ellie winced. Calling him by his first name uninvited certainly wasn’t a good way to get Hardy on his side. Though to be fair, it didn’t seem that Jacobs was at all bothered to have Hardy on his side, so maybe he was well aware of his words and their effects. 

“Oh, and you do have the resources here, do you? _’Brad’_?”

“It’s Robert,” Jacobs insisted and now Ellie had to bite her lip to stop the laughter bubbling up. He’d just stepped right in it. “And I don’t have them here, of course, in this tiny… outfit.”

“Oi!” She complained. “You were just fine with using our ‘tiny outfit’ as long as it suited you! Stop being a dick about this and let’s join heads instead of butting them against each other. We’re all in the same boat here.”

“Right. You all know a lot about _boats_ ,” Jacobs sneered in such a way that even his DS cringed. “Wasn’t that the latest crime-spree here, stolen fishing-boats?”

Hardy rolled his eyes and he shifted from where he was leaning against the desk. His arms remained crossed. “Like she said: Stop being such a dick about it, Jacobs. Nobody is stealing your thunder here, there’s no reason to be so petty. If this isn’t Phyllis Simons in the woods, we all will come back here and kneel on the floor to beg your forgiveness, but for now, your insistence that she’s been killed by a revenge-driven mobster from Kazakhstan is jumping to conclusions more than assuming we have found Phyllis today.”

Jacobs raised himself up and from the way DS Parihar shifted, Ellie felt her hair stand up like it did when a thunderstorm was approaching from the sea. “Oh, is that so, Detective _Hardy_?” he smirked. “Because you of all people would know about jumping to conclusions and drawing false ones out of a hat, don’t you? _Alec_?”

She saw a vein on Hardy’s neck tick and a lightning-quick twitch of his mouth but other than raising his eyebrows, he stayed in his position, still and silent. 

“Like you did in Sandbrook. Can’t believe they let you get back to work after that, but what’s even worse – then you botch up another murder, another child-murder even, and you manage to fuck it up so completely that the whole case gets burned at the stakes – where _you_ should have been burned instead! What’s it now – you want to fuck up one more? Is there some kind of competition you’re trying to win?” 

Ellie could see that it was getting to Hardy but where he was usually quick to shout on a daily basis, he remained silent now. Like a rock that stood in the shore, alone against the waves that kept gnawing and gnawing on it and would ultimately win. It made her blood boil. 

“Is it not good enough to fuck up cases? Do you now need to be directly involved to feel important? Maybe this is all a prank, a game you play to feel validated. Someone you know staged that attack on you-“ 

And now she had enough. “Out,” Ellie growled and yanked open the door. “Out of this room and out of this station - _now_ or I’ll bloody well kick your arse, Jacobs! And believe me, I will!”

“Miller,” Hardy murmured, reaching out for her but she was too furious and ducked away from him. He resumed his position at the desk, watching. 

“I will not calm down! And I will not stand here and listen to that sanctimonious piece of _shit_ come here, bind all our people into a completely base-less hunt for a contract-killer, shove _us_ to the side with a presumptuous pat on the head as if we’re little babies who just did their first do on the potty, ignore all the leads we give him and then call all of us incompetent! And not only does he wilfully put aside an attack on a fellow officer as unimportant, now he openly accuses you of faking that whole incident to your … I don’t even know what he’s thinking, to your _amusement_!” 

She took a deep breath and felt another wave of anger wash over her. “And if you’re just going to stand here and let him do that, you’re just as stupid as he is and you should better get home now because I might kick your skinny arse as well!” She turned back around to Jacobs, who was still in the room, staring at her. “And just so you know, Lee Ashworth _did_ kill Pippa Gillespie and we proved it and he’s in prison along with everyone else we found guilty! Now - _OUT_!” 

Parihar took Jacobs by the arm and tucked him out, but inside the doorway Jacobs turned once more and glared at Ellie. “This will have consequences, DS Miller. Look at your badge one more time because you will not see it again anytime soon when my complaint-“ He never finished the sentence. 

“Yes, it will have severe consequences, Detective Inspector Jacobs,” Hardy said, still against the desk, still infuriatingly calm. “She will be severely reprimanded for speaking like this to her superior officer. Mind you – your accusations and general misbehaviour has been noted as well and I’m sure _your_ Superintendent will be delighted to get a copy of the conversation we’ve been having here.” He pointed to the ceiling, where the red light from the camera blinked innocently down at them, without even once looking away from Jacobs. “Now – I suggest you see yourself out. It might also be prudent to assemble your belongings because as you pointed out – this is a very incompetent police-station and we wouldn’t want things to get lost. Like IDs, for example.” 

Fuming, Jacobs stormed out of the room and slammed the door on his way out, nearly catching Ellie’s finger between door and frame. Parihar turned once more and winced apologetically through the glass but hurried after his boss who had to cross the whole of CID, where everyone had gone suspiciously quiet and stone-faced. 

Ellie felt her heart race and bile creep up her throat. She turned to look at Hardy, dreading … she didn’t even know what she was dreading. But he just leaned against the desk, silent but not still anymore. His chest was shaking from silent laughter and his whole face was beaming with mirth and – was that pride? Admiration? It certainly looked like it. 

“You bastard,” she hissed, trying to keep a little bit of her anger from before. “Did you know this was on when we came here?”

“I might have asked DC Harford if the camera in this room was still working. I mean, she couldn’t have known we were having a private conversation here, could she?” he said innocently. Ellie growled. 

“And you let me go off like that, knowing it’s going to be taped? Do you want me to lose my job, is that it?” 

He uncrossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. “How did you come to that conclusion, Miller? That would be about as stupid as shooting myself in the foot.”

“Also,” he continued, “I tried to warn you.” He had, hadn’t he? Bastard!

“Now what? What will that reprimand do to my career? I’m already marked because of Joe…” Even though seconds ago she couldn’t have cared less about her job, now that the threat was out of the room, she felt worry gnaw at her. “I don’t want to be a traffic-cop again.”

“Oh, fine.” He rolled his eyes and came closer so he stood in front of her. “Detective Sergeant Miller, I hereby reprimand you for being rude to your direct superior. That’s me, by the way.” He held up his finger. “Don’t do it again.”

He nodded as if he’d accomplished something grand and strode out of the room. When Ellie followed because there really was no other direction she _could_ go, even though she wanted to hit or kick something right now, the whole room burst into applause as she entered CID. Blushing, she hurried past her desk, past Hardy’s office, past a grinning Katie and out of the door and down and out of the building, resting only when she reached the safety of the beach. 

Her hands were shaking and she couldn’t tell if it was out of fear or anger or elation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Water may rot the body, but air does it so much quicker! Imagine my surprise when I found out that a body in the river would stay intact much longer than one out in the open.  
>  Interestingly, the best (quick) information about decomposing bodies and the effects of water or weather and time on them came from funeral-websites. Right underneath the interesting things that happen in a dead body, you got a link that could lead you to plan the best funeral for your loved ones. I'll just leave it at that. _


	13. Chapter 13

He found her on the beach, the occasional gust of wind blowing through her hair and messing up her curls. She was wearing them short again; not as short as when they’d first met but not as long as it had been during the Winterman-case. He hadn’t even noticed when she’d had them cut. 

She was pretending not to notice him standing a few feet behind and he smiled to himself and trudged over, plopping his arse into the still-cold sand. Even with the sun making a valiant effort now in comparison to the dreary morning, it was pretty chill and the wind was doing its best to prevent anyone from wearing less than three layers. 

He handed her a fish ’n chips pack, still warm but paper already slightly transparent from the fat. She stared at it as if she couldn’t comprehend its existence. “What’s that?”

“Fish and chips.”

“Yes, I can see that. Why are you giving them to me?”

“Because you don’t like salad.”

She glared at him, still refusing to take the food. “What kind of reason is that? ‘Because I don’t like salad’. You never bring me chips!”

“I don’t?” He didn’t? 

“NO! So why now?”

“Miller, take those stupid chips or I’ll throw them in the bin! For God’s sake, do you have to be so bloody difficult all the time?”

“ _I’m_ difficult? Oh, that’s rich, coming from you! You’re the one who refuses to eat like a normal person and who thinks face-to-face conversations need to involve murder and mayhem, not me! I’m the normal one!”

He blinked, still holding the chips. 

“What!”

“Oh, I’m not touching that one with a ten-foot pitchfork,” he muttered, secretly pleased with the way this talk was going. He’d feared she would cry for whatever reason. Shouting and insults he could do. Again, he nudged the food at her and with a sigh so heavy as if someone had put the world on her shoulders, she accepted and started on the packaging. 

With that out of the way, he pulled his Tupperware-container out of his wonderful pocket and began nibbling his grapes. 

Back at the station, after Miller had run off, he’d been called into Elaine’s office to explain a) the ruckus, b) the fuming Manchester DI that had called her seconds ago to complain and c) what the fuck – direct quote – else had been going on in her station. It had taken a while to get her up to date, then the preliminary autopsy-report had come in, some results from SOCO about the two scenes – forest and road – and when he’d finished going through these, it had been half past two and his stomach had tried to eat itself. 

“So, how angry is Jenkinson?”

He wiggled his hand. “Not so much, on the grand scale of things. Said she’d have rather heard from us that Jacobs was being a bloody knob.”

“I still got my job, then?”

With the sandwich – rye again, with roast-beef, salad and mustard – halfway up to his mouth, he stared at her in utter disbelief. “Of course you do,” he finally replied when it became apparent that the question wasn’t asked in jest and needed an answer. “I told you so, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” she mumbled through a half-chewed piece of fish, “but you say a lot and it’s not always true.”

“When was the last time I did that?”

Miller chewed some more and picked three chips at once to stuff them in her mouth. She must have been really hungry or wanted to avoid answering. But he could wait. 

“You know, I can’t remember,” she finally admitted and looked over at him with a slight smile. “Am I still your boss, then?”

“You never were. But it’s still your case.” 

The ate in companionable silence without anyone bothering them. His phone chirped its Daisy-alert and he snapped a picture of his half-empty lunchbox and Miller’s diminished chips as answer. It got him a smiley-face in return so that was probably good. 

“Have you heard from the vicar?” he asked suddenly. He’d been scrolling through the selection of emojis to choose one for Daisy and stumbled over the one with the halo. 

“You mean the one who left Broadchurch to find his true calling? Not really, no. Why?” 

“Just interested.” 

Miller smirked and crumpled up her wrappings. “You want to ask him for an alibi? He really didn’t like you much, did he?”

“Must have weighed heavily on his faith,” he grumbled, watching a tern swoop down into the waves and emerge with a fish in its bill only seconds later. “Not liking everyone.”

“Oh, you were a proper arsehole to him during Danny’s murder-investigation. Why don’t you like him?”

“I do. I just don’t understand the outrage from him or the bloody church as a whole when someone asks them for an alibi. They’re still people underneath that cloth, aren’t they?”

“Yeah, and we all know how much you like people,” Miller muttered but nudged him with her shoulder to show it was meant in jest. It was a nice gesture but he would have known anyway. 

In return, he offered her the remains of his selected fruit and she scooped out the grapes and left him the apple-slices. He would really miss this when Daisy’s usual, careless, slightly selfish teenage-self re-emerged. “I just don’t like some people thinking they’re above others. Vicar, priest, nun – doesn’t matter, they’re all the same as we are. Same urges, same base instincts. Some of us do bad things and some do good, but we don’t usually pretend our clothes define our actions like they do. Paul’s a good man but he’s just as fallible as Joe or Mark Latimer or me.”

It _had_ rankled when Coates had seen it prudent to chastise him for his work in front of the whole congregation at Jack Marshall’s funeral. That they rarely got praise from the people they checked up on was normal, that they complained about it understandable, in a way. But to be openly reprimanded by a priest in a funeral-service for doing his job thoroughly had been a new low even for him. “And shouldn’t someone who claims to be the conscience of the world be more aware about human pitfalls and depravity to know that _nobody_ is free of sin? Isn’t there even a proverb about that?”

She hummed a little. “Doesn’t it bother you?”

“Hm?”

“This … doubting-thing? Always seeing the possibilities for evil in the people we meet, never taking anyone for face-value. Doesn’t that bother you?”

For a while, he just sat and thought while Miller patiently waited beside him. She started sifting the sand with her hand, the reddish, coarse grain trickling from her palm onto little sand-piles, none of them high. It had infuriated him as a child to be here on this bloody beach with his stupid, always fighting parents and not even the right kind of sand to build castles with. “It used to.”

“Really? What happened?”

He chuckled without much humour. “Got used to it, I guess.” He took a deep breath. “It’s easier, not believing them first off than to later learn that they deceived you. Less painful that way.” And yet he’d been kicked in the heart when he’d found out that poor, childless Ricky Gillespie had lied and tricked them and actually killed his own niece in a fit of jealous rage and brought on the death of his own child. “Sometimes I slip up,” he confessed silently and by the sudden stiffening of her he knew she understood exactly what he meant. 

After a few moments of peace, she slapped her thigh decisively. “Alright then. Off we go, back to the desk. Maybe SOCO came up with something by now.”

“Oh, they did. Two sets of tyre-tracks,” he explained while slapping the sand off his now-damp trouser-legs, “a mudged-up bootprint in the dirt that’s matching in size one they found beside the body and the coroner said it’s near-certainly Phyllis Simons. The dental-records are still being processed but they should have a result by the end of the day.”

“What? And you’re just telling me that now? You let me sit here on my arse in the bloody cold, feeding me chips and grapes like a monkey in the zoo when we could have been back solving the case all this time? I can’t believe you!” Miller griped and didn’t stop griping until they’d reached their respective desks. 

He felt like smiling the whole time but restrained himself. It would have only set her off more.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Last chapter was the middle of my story! So, in celebration of that: have one more!_

When they came into CID, Brian was just on his way out. “Oh, there you are, Ell. Just put the preliminary on your desk. Congratulations, Sir” he turned to Hardy, “you’ve now been officially placed at the scene.”

“Oh, goodie,” Hardy muttered but patiently waited for more. 

“We found your watch in the ditch,” Brian explained. “The strap was broken, possibly because something snagged behind it or from someone gripping wrong and tearing it off when they carried you. No drag-marks that we found, but it’s highly probable that there were two people and they just grabbed arms and legs and dumped you in the boot.”

Ellie glared at Brian for his choice of words, but he either didn’t notice, didn’t care or used it deliberately to get his own fill of rudeness against Hardy. Since Hardy didn’t seem to mind, she let it rest. 

“What boot, then? Anything on the vehicle? Or any traces of where my car’s gone?”

“Well, we haven’t been able to get good prints from the tyre tread pattern so it’s not definitive yet. Too much time has passed. From width, though, we narrowed it down to the normal tyre-sizes, no extra-wide or extra small.”

Not very helpful, Ellie thought but just scrunched her nose. 

“As for your car – that’s your job, isn’t it? Searching for lost property? We just see what’s there, not what’s not there. Oh, the other car had a flat tyre, probably from when they were up at the forest. We found tread-marks there from it, but not from yours, and there’s a space where they reversed it so we’re still hopeful we can find better prints there for the model of the tyres. Anything to narrow it down, maybe?” Brian asked Hardy.

“I’m … decently sure I’d seen a VW-sign on the front. And the headlights were angular, not round. Does that help?”

Brian sniffed. “Not much, no. But VW narrows it down a little bit, so… let’s see. Anyway, report’s on your desk, Ellie, and we’ll let you know when we’ve got more. Need to be back now. Good luck.” And he was off, leaving the two of them in the corridor. 

They hadn’t even reached Ellie’s desk when Katie Harford intercepted. “Sir – uh, sorry, Ma’am. The coroner just called; the dental records are a match, it’s definitely Phyllis Simons. DI Jacobs should have just waited before he blew his fuse.” She gave a sharp, lightning-quick, toothy grin. “They can’t say anything about time of death yet, they… uhm, they need to look at the few larvae that’s been found on her. God – that sounds horrible, doesn’t it?”

Ellie smiled at her, liking the signs of compassion Katie was nowadays allowing into her work-ethics. It might be easier to detach yourself from them but it wasn’t healthy to supress it completely. No matter your gender, you shouldn’t _have_ to cut off parts of your personality to get the job done. If it wasn’t for you, it wasn’t for you, but there was nobody but yourself you owed anything to. Ellie had learned that staying true to herself was better on the long run than compartmentalizing everything and putting it in neat little boxes. If something upset her, she got upset. Oh, she’d learned to keep it bottled up during interviews or out on a scene, but once she had time and space, she knew to let it out. Otherwise, she would only bring it home and it had no place there. 

“It does a bit, yeah. Thanks, Katie. Did you find anything about Hardy’s car? It’s still missing and now that we know it was at the scene where Phyllis’s body was left, it gets more and more important that we find it.”

Katie shook her head. “No, sorry. Nothing on the APB. I’ve extended it to get noticed of every abandoned vehicle with or without plates, but I’ve gotten swamped with the notices and hadn’t had time yet to sift through.”

Hardy sighed heavily and blew out a breath. “Well, send them over to me. I don’t have anything more relevant to do anyway, might as well make myself useful. Miller, are you giving out a call for witnesses for Wednesday on that road?” 

Meaning: ‘Miller, go give out a call for witnesses for last Wednesday on that road’. She would have done it anyway and it rankled that he felt the need to explain her job to her, but Ellie supposed she could be grateful that he posed it as a question of interest and not a demand. She was the lead-officer here, and having him acknowledge that even in his roundabout way felt really good.

O o o o O O o o o O

_”So you’re not coming home yet?”_

“Sorry, darling. I really can’t. I’m still sifting through all those reports and I really would like to get something done before the weekend.”

_”Dad… that’s tomorrow. It’s Friday. And I don’t know if you remember, but I’m supposed to be at Mum’s today.”_

He winced and grimaced. Right, it was Tess’s weekend! “Shit, I’ve forgotten. Shit shit shit – have you called her?” She must have, otherwise his own phone would have been burning from all the calls. 

_”Course I did. Well – she did. I explained, she said it’s alright but I owe her another weekend now. Do you guys really keep a list? Do you… I don’t know, cross off whose turn it is and make special lists for when one of you has me longer than was agreed on?”_

“Of course not.” They so did. “You know we both…”

_”…Love you very much, bla bla bla. Yeah, Dad, I know. I love you both, too, also very much. But this is ridiculous. And I won’t leave until you got the creep who did this to you, so you can just accept it or moan about it but it won’t change a thing!”_

“Yah, well.” There wasn’t much he could say to that. “In that case, I better get back to it so you can enjoy your weekends a bit more.”

 _”Right. Because that’s so the reason I’m hoping you get the fucker.”_ He could practically hear her eyeroll and see her scowl. _”But fine. If you’re staying there, at least make sure you get a lift from someone you trust. Miller still there?”_

“Daisy…” 

_”No arguing, Dad! You are so not walking home in the pitch black! It makes my skin crawl, thinking about it!”_

He decided not to tell her that he’d walked home the day before. Of course, it had still been daylight then. After assuring her that he would not walk, that he’d get a lift with someone or call a cab, Daisy finally hung up and he bit his lips, torn between feeling saddened by her need to be the adult around him and annoyance for the same thing. 

After clicking through twenty more abandoned car-notices, he finally decided that it didn’t make sense to stay here to do this crap. He was tired and there was a lump of things sitting somewhere beneath his throat that were already threatening to come up. He’d probably toss and turn all night, it felt like one of these times, and prolonging the time without sleep never helped with them. 

With a sigh, he closed down his computer when a knock on the window of his office startled him nearly out of his chair.

“Christ!” Miller was standing in the doorway. “What’s the matter with you! Don’t sneak up on me like this!” 

“Sorry,” she said but her face said she truly wasn’t. “But forensics just emailed. They have a print. It’s clear, not smudged, and they’re running it through the database right now. Thought you would want to know.”

He blew out a deep breath. “Yes, sure. Of course. Good. That’s good. Is it?” When he looked up, she was just finishing up on a big yawn. Which of course caused him to yawn as well. “Well,” he said, yawning again, “I was emphatically told by my daughter that I am not allowed to walk home at this time of the night.” He saw her hide a grin, but it was conquered by another yawn. At this rate, they’d just drop on the floor. “Could I bother you for a lift home?”

O o o o O O o o o O

Ellie didn’t sleep very well. The mysterious print found on Hardy’s watch was keeping her awake for much longer than she had thought possible. After dropping off her boss under the watchful glare of Daisy Hardy holding a chicken – and if she found the way he shifted under her scrutiny ridiculously endearing, nobody would ever know – she’d gone straight home in order to fall into bed.

Sadly, her youngest had had other ideas. Her dad had put him to bed but Fred had somehow climbed out of it and had not only been playing with his train-set in the middle of the living-room but he’d also eaten one and a half chocolate-bars. She probably still loved him more than chocolate, but it was one of those times where she wasn’t sure how _much_ more. 

Fred had made a fuss when she’d cleaned him up and put him to bed, making such noise that she’d decided to give up and had just taken him into her own bed. 

She’d forgotten how much kids that age _moved_ in their sleep! 

Now, eight o’clock on Saturday, she was on her way back up to CID only to find her boss already in the kitchen, making tea and toast. 

“What dragged you out here at this ungodly hour?” she asked, nicking his toast. He didn’t complain, just made a new batch. 

“Same as you, I suppose?”

“What? You had a five-year old in your bed, kicking your shins black and blue, too?” 

He huffed a laugh. “No, but I would have given him a fair competition.” Sometimes, he stunned her like that. While he was gruff and taciturn and outright rude a lot of the times, there were those moments when he just let her be part of his inner mindset without prompting or hesitation. It felt rare and like something to be cherished. “Too curious about that print.”

“Yeah.” She made her way to her desk and opened her mail, feeling rather than seeing him pull up Mike’s chair so he could sit next to her, crunching toast right into her ear. He smelled like passionfruit and vanilla and she was startled to realize that the scent had been his since that day in his kitchen, when he’d so hesitantly asked her to scrub the filth off his shoulders and back. “Okay, there it is – full report attached, ugh, stupid Adobe Reader takes forever to open…” 

And there it was, black on white. A wonderful, near-perfect print on the glass of his watch. Completely unknown. 

“Not in the database.” She sagged into her chair. “God, why can’t we get a bloody break at least once! This is insane, we’ve got a body we didn’t even know we were looking for. A crime-scene – finally – the suspects on tape, a rental-car, CCTV, your missing car and no bloody evidence that helps us at all! God, why didn’t they at least leave a trace somewhere!” 

“What, you mean like signing their name on me along with all the profanities? Sure would have been helpful, I agree.”

“Don’t be so bloody quip. So – let’s go through this one more time.” They relocated to his office, as it was bigger, less likely to be filled with colleagues who wanted to escape their dreary home-lives and, most importantly, had a sofa. “You drive home from getting milk. Spot a car at a side-road and decide to stop. Do you remember that bit?” He shook his head. “Okay. But why would you? Is that a thing you do, stop at by-roads when you see a car?”

He sagged on his office’s couch, next to her. “Maybe? Depends on the situation. Possibly looked like the driver was in trouble? Doesn’t matter, though. I did stop and I walked over and now that forensics have it confirmed, I think we can comfortably believe my spotty recollection and assume that I walked up to them, spoke shortly to the woman and then – nothing.”

“Knocked out. In front of a VW. Okay. Assuming they’d just dumped the body of Phyllis in the forest, they would be nervous. If they recognized you, they’d think you might be able to remember this incident and them. Would you?”

“Well, I sure hope so. Definitely would remember it if I knew them.”

Ellie blinked. Frowned. Blinked again. “Right. That’s… very likely, right? Given the sheer amount of nasty they scribbled on you, it’s fair to assume they knew you and didn’t like you. Which makes it more likely that you had some personal interaction with them.” 

“Right.” He stared at the wall and it looked like he was trying to burn a hole through it. “Someone I know who doesn’t like me, knows I’m a police-officer and drives a VW. That shouldn’t be too hard to narrow down, right?”

While he was racking his brain, probably listing the vehicles of every person he knew, Ellie recalled one more thing. “It’s got to do with either Danny or Trish Winterman,” she mused. “If what Maggie and Olly said is true, Phyllis was most interested in those cases.”

“Awww, no. No.” He looked like he’d just stepped into a pile of dog-shit, only worse.

“What? Have you got a suspicion?”

“Yes, a terrible one.” He stood and walked to his computer and Ellie followed to be the one to look over his shoulder this time. Quickly, too quick to follow, he typed a search into the database and there it was. Name, age, address and registered vehicle, a dark-green VW Golf.

“No, really?” Ellie looked at Hardy, who was still sporting utter disgust on his face. She highly emphasized. “Aaron Mayford?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _du-du-du-duuuuuuum..._
> 
> _Remember what it said in the first chapter-notes? Still valid!_


	15. Chapter 15

“I told you he’s up to no good! Didn’t I tell you?” Katie was excitedly pacing in Hardy’s office, caught between grinning in delight to get Mayford behind bars and showing remorse for her outburst and the implications that a woman had had to die to make it happen. Ellie understood her quite well – she’d felt squigged out by Mayford just as much and had been a little sad that he hadn’t done anything to break his parole. 

“Reign it in a little, Harford. We still need something solid instead of supposition and very shoddy circumstantial evidence.” Hardy took a deep breath, then stopped and turned to Ellie before letting it out slowly. “Miller?”

She shook herself awake under his gaze. “Right. Yes, of course. Uh, the print isn’t his so that’s not good. We know there were two people so it might have been the other per- ah.” She stopped. “You said it was a woman, right?” Hardy nodded and she would have bet money that he knew what she was getting at. Katie, apparently knew it, too. 

“Mayford’s married. Can we somehow get her prints?” 

Hardy wrinkled his nose. “Dodgy. We need more to request her prints and this isn’t American telly where we can just lift her prints from a glass or something. No. If we want Mayford, this has to be very solid. What’s the connection between him and Phyllis, where could they have met and why? If we know a place, we can cross-check for Mayford or his wife but without it, we’re pretty much treading water.”

Hardy was right. While Mayford fit all the criteria to be a real suspect, nothing was even remotely solid. Owning a car and being a creeper was sadly not enough to get him arrested. No cause for putting him under surveillance, not even for calling him in for questioning. Even less so for his wife, Jenna. “Right. This is what we’ll do. We need to find out all we can without directly speaking to the Mayfords or involving them. Which garage do they use, what hobbies do they have, what paper do they read? If they had a flat, they would have needed at least two new tyres. Of course, they could have just bought the tyres on the internet, but let’s hope they had it serviced. What else – oh, we still need to find Hardy’s car. It’s still missing and if I remember the Mayford’s car correctly, it would have been quite a tight fit to get you in the boot, Sir.”

He sniffed. “You mean to tell me that they put me in my own car before they-” he just gestured at himself with a down-swiping hand-motion, “did this? Fantastic.” 

“I can check for the garage and I’ll be glad to delve into Mayford’s hobbies if that’s alright with you, Ma’am?” Katie volunteered and Ellie nodded. 

“Good. Do that, Katie. And we’ll see if we can get a bit more about your car, Sir. See if anyone’s found it – I’ve put it in with the witness-call so maybe someone will notice it sitting somewhere on a tourist-spot or something like it. What else? Am I missing something?”

“We need more information about Phyllis’s work. We should try and wriggle something out of Radcliffe. Olly would probably be easier, but she’s got the better connections and more weight to pull.” _And you hate Olly_ , Ellie thought but simply smiled. “Do you want to go?”

While she would have loved to escape boring paper-trails, the idea of Hardy speaking with the press – well, with Maggie – to get information out of her was too tempting. “No, I think I’ll stay here and supervise Katie. She might need my senior input,” she grinned and enjoyed his scowl immensely.”

O o o o O O o o o O

They found out exactly nothing. Well – not nothing. They found Mayford’s garage where he hadn’t been since last year, his newspaper – the Daily Mail, not a surprise but not at all helpful. They found that he had no obvious hobbies and that Jenna was a stay-at-home-mum so their two-year-old wasn’t in child-care and she therefor not really known around town.

When Hardy came back, he was in such a shitty mood that Ellie decided to leave him alone to stew at his desk and went out to get her and Katie something to eat after another hour of fruitless searches. While he didn’t deserve it for being such a git, she still got him a box of fried noodles just in case he got hungry later.

It so wasn’t fussing when she was getting food anyway. 

“So, Mayford,” he said about two hours after his ‘date’ with Maggie, joining them in the big room at Ellie’s desk. “Anything useful?”

Katie put away her fork and clicked her screen back to life. “Not really. Also, nothing more from SOCO or the coroner. But it’s the weekend, so… Sorry, Sir. Should we keep digging? Maybe go through his garbage?” Her eyes gleamed hopefully and Ellie couldn’t help but smile. She held out the noddle-container to Hardy without looking and he took it with a small grunt of acknowledgement. 

“No,” he said after sitting at Orrin’s desk and opening the box. “That won’t fly at all with the Super.”

“Did Maggie give you anything?” Ellie asked around a spoonful of her curry. 

“A headache,” he replied and started digging in. By now, the noodles would be nearly cold but either Daisy hadn’t packed him lunch for today or he just didn’t care at all. Considering his habit of microwaving stewed tea, the second was definitely an option. “Had to sell my soul but at least she promised to dig around and ask her contacts. Good thing Jocelyn was there or she might have extorted more than an exclusive to the case.” He sighed. “I am aware of the importance of free press, but do they have to be _this_ free?”

Katie smirked silently into her Cola and Ellie cackled. “Oh, don’t be such a grump. At least Maggie won’t sell you for a shag like Olly would.” That had Katie openly laughing, nearly spitting soup all over her desk. Hardy scowled but there was an amused twinkle in the corner of his eyes. 

“Don’t be so sure about it.” He warned and ate a few bites more. “These are cold.”

“No, really? They’ve only been sitting here for about half an hour. We should complain! You’re free to use the microwave.” 

Hardy wrinkled his nose, obviously thought about it and finally just shrugged and continued eating. “Mayford works with computers, right?” 

“Yes, he’s an IT-consultant.”

“So… his hobbies could well be something computer-related?”

“It’s reasonable,” Ellie mused. “But short of hacking his internet-connection – which we won’t ever get permission and don’t have the skills for – that’s not helping.”

“No,” Katie said. “But… I’ve got a thought. He said he likes tying up his bed-partners, right? That was the rape he was sentenced for, the woman said he tied her up before he had sex with her. What if…” She wriggled her nose. “What if sex at home with a baby in the next room isn’t enough to satisfy his urges?”

Hardy raised his eyebrows. “You mean he’s cheating on her?”

“Not necessarily. I mean that maybe they both like to have their sex-lives spiced up a bit by going somewhere private to have a bit of fun?” 

Ellie swallowed a sudden, unwanted memory of Joe joking about her using handcuffs in bed. While that memory would forever feel dirty and cheap and disgusting now, knowing he’d already killed Danny by then and had just been playing the faithful and amazing husband, at the time she’d been thrilled by the idea. “That’s a bit of a reach, isn’t it? And how would we even find out about it? Where would they go? Hotel?”

“Check with any hotel in the area,” Hardy decided. “And I’ve got a friend who might help with the online-thing without breaking any privacy-laws just yet.”

“A friend? You?” Ellie teased but instead of scowling as expected, he smirked. 

“There are still things you don’t know about me, Miller. Interesting, isn’t it?” He grinned and tapped the food-container, now empty. “Thanks for the meal. Now, back to work! Oh, and Harford.”

Katie looked up. 

“Good work.” 

Ellie could see her face light up like a Christmas-tree and she felt a sharp pang of envy. It had been a long time since she’d been this young and happy over such shitty praise. These days, it took a lot more to make her beam with pride.

O o o o O O o o o O

Alistair laughed at him through the phone. _”Wow, Alec, you don’t ask small things, do you? I’d love to help you, but I’d need more than this to find anything. There are literally thousands of websites for people with kinky tastes, and none of them are easy to access. Do you at least have his IP-address?”_

Scowling, Hardy clicked through the file on Mayford with his left hand. By now, he’d had enough practice to develop some impressive left-handed mouse-skills, but typing still demanded a bit of effort and concentration. “Yah, have it here. You wanna write it down?”

 _”No, send me a mail, that’s better.”_ Alistair sighed. _”Okay, with the IP, we might get a bit of luck. But it’s still a very, very long shot, Alec. I can’t promise you anything. Especially not if he’s using a VPN, which he should do if he’s any smart. If we had more information about the type of website we’re looking for, it would be a lot easier.”_

“If we had more information, don’t you think I would have given it to you? All I know is what he said about a year ago, that he likes tying up his women.”

_”Definitely women? That would narrow it down a little. Not much, mind, but a wee bit.”_

“As far as I know, his tastes,” Alec sniffed in contempt, “are very hetero-normative. Wouldn’t know about his wife, though I truly doubt he’d go with anything not-female. He’s not that type of person who’d be interested in a male playmate.”

 _The exception being me and a couple of sharpies,_ he thought, chilled, but angrily shoved it deep down. He’d have time to confront those demons on his walk back home. Right now, he couldn’t afford to let his personal feelings interfere with his work. Later. 

_”Okay. I’ll try to find something but please don’t shout at me if I can’t. And if you dig up anything more, send it to me. Anything might help feeding the search-matrix.”_

“Will do. Ta, mate.”

_”Anytime. When’re you coming up next time? Any plans? Rani and the kids would be delighted to see you again.”_

“Ugh… God, social interaction? Again? Last time was only three years ago, you’re getting greedy in your old age,” Hardy teased and smiled at the loud guffaw from the other end. “I’ll see when I can dig myself free, ‘kay? Daisy might like to come, too, but I can’t promise.”

They chatted for a few seconds longer and hung up and with a deep sigh, Hardy went back to looking at abandoned cars. “Where are you?” he asked the screen but sadly there wasn’t a pop-up that told him ‘Here!’. 

After twenty minutes of senseless searching and just as fruitless checking of e-mails, he finally admitted that this wasn’t going to get them anywhere. From the look outside of his office, it didn’t seem like Miller and Harford were having more success. With a sigh, he buried his face in his hands but quickly changed position. 

They still smelled like the bloody ink-remover. It shouldn’t be possible – probably wasn’t even true – but he could still smell it on his palms. Everything he tried – Daisy’s soap, soap from the station’s bathroom, his own soap, scrubbing his hands with grass and even stupid lemon-juice and coffee-grains, like the websites suggested, didn’t work. The smell wouldn’t go away. 

At this point, he would have to admit that it wasn’t real. He hated admitting such a thing, so it was good that he’d only have to admit it to himself for now. It wasn’t exactly debilitating or work-hindering to have chemical smells on his hands – in his head – so he didn’t think anyone would ever need to know. As traumatic hallucinations went, it was actually pretty tame. 

With a self-depreciating smirk, he scratched his head and took out the files for his case. There should be _something_ in the evidence from his clothes or skin that would give them a hint, surely? It was while he was scanning the results from the fibres stuck in his hair that were still stubbornly boring, cheap cotton that Miller knocked on his door. 

“That was Maggie on the phone,” she said as her eyes flashed down to his hands. He’d been rubbing his wrists subconsciously and it took an astonishing amount of effort to not hide them under the desk now. Jesus Christ, this was annoying. He deliberately folded his hands in front of him, which made him feel ridiculous. Miller pointedly ignored it. “She’s got something she wants to tell you but she refused to come here so we’re going to meet her at your place.”

“What? No! I don’t want the bloody press in my house,” he growled. “If she wants to tell us something, she can bloody well come here.” 

“Oh, don’t be a dink, Sir. We need her insight because for some strange reason that I cannot fathom the origins of, the press is in general not very open to us. So, if Maggie wants to go to your house to talk, that’s where we go to talk.”

“Why not your house?” Hardy was aware that he was whining but he couldn’t quite stop it. 

“Oh, I don’t know – maybe because my nosy father is there and my even nosier nephew and my noisy kid? Your child, at least, is well-behaved enough to stay in her room.”

He rolled his eyes. As if… Daisy would listen on the door if she thought she could get away with it or pretend she was out tending to the stupid chickens and listen in through the window. “She’s golfing today,” he muttered. He’d practically forced her to go out and she had only relented because he would be working anyway. His attempts to get her to see Tess at least for Saturday and Sunday had fallen on completely deaf ears, but Chloe had called and asked for a match on the golf-course. 

“Well, then. That’s settled. Off we go, if you haven’t suddenly found a missing piece of evidence?” Her tone of voice was a mixture of cheeky and hopeful, and he was annoyed that he had to shake his head no. “Right. I’ll drive.”

O o o o O O o o o O

Despite his reluctance to allow Maggie Radcliffe into his house, he was still curious what she had to offer. If she even went so far as to go to his home, it had to be something, at least.

When Miller reached his driveway, Radcliffe was standing in front of the door, arms crossed as if she’d been waiting for hours already. Couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. 

“What, then,” he growled when he passed her, thankful for the bright day that would allow them to talk outside on the garden-furniture. The thought of talking about this case – his case – with anyone except Miller in his home gnarled at his insides, and it didn’t help at all that he could recognize the origins of these thoughts. Instead, it only made him more irritated. 

Either way, he shuffled them through his living-room and outside the sliding doors with as much deliberation and patience as he could muster and, at Miller’s pointed suggestion, went back inside to make them tea. 

He didn’t want bloody tea. He didn’t want to give Maggie bloody Radcliffe tea! He wanted this whole thing done with and shut and finished, but he wouldn’t get that without the first two, so he acquiesced to Miller. 

It was becoming a habit. 

“Right.” He slammed the mugs and the tea-pot on the table, startling the two women who’d been catching up on local gossip. “Now, what?”

“Oh, charming as ever,” Radcliffe mocked and Miller stared disappointedly at the tea. 

“What, no biscuits?” Luckily, she spotted something on his face and relented on the teasing. “Ah, doesn’t matter. Now, Maggie – you said you have something?”

“I do. Not sure if it’s helpful, but it’s sure interesting. My friend Domenic works IT for the Guardian and he’d been sort of friends with Phyllis. Anyway, Dom had a very good guess at her password on her work-computer and he checked her files and – most importantly – her browser-history. Don’t know why the Manchester police didn’t check?”

“They’re probably all idiots,” Hardy scowled and Radcliffe raised her eyebrows but let it go. 

“So, she didn’t have new stories on her desktop or her hard-drive but she’d cut-pasted a folder from there to a mobile device just before her leave. He’d checked around in the system and found her search-history, and it’s indeed very interesting what she’d been looking for.”

Smug, Radcliffe took a long, deliberate drink from her tea. Hardy wanted to knock it out of her hands. Instead, he stomped off to get some bloody biscuits for bloody Miller, who’d been fiddling with her spoon, a sure sign she was getting hungry. 

When he returned, Radcliffe set down her mug and smiled a little apologetically. “Sorry. I can’t help making dramatic pauses. Force of habit.” He felt slightly mollified and offered her the package of shortbread before putting the rest in front of Miller. “Anyway, it looks like Phyllis was researching dating-websites, and most frequently those that cater to a certain type of customer, ones that like their dates a little spicier.” Her eyes lit up at that and for a short second, Hardy’s mind flashed to Radcliffe and Knight together and what kind of things they’d consider ‘spicy’. 

He quickly banned the thought away when he realized that he was pondering if it might involve law-books and if so, how. Very inappropriate. 

“She’d been on these sites most often,” she pulled out a folded-up piece of paper, “and I’m sorry to interrupt here but is that a chicken?”

Hardy looked to the left. Ellie was perching on the backrest, feathers fluffed in the way they did when she was content. A low clucking came from her and he raised his eyebrows and turned back to Radcliffe. “No, that’s a parrot.” At her comically widened eyes, he rolled his own. “Yes, of course it’s a bloody chicken. Now continue, please?”

“Since when do you have a chicken? Since when does he have a chicken,” she turned to ask Miller, as if the chicken-owning was somehow noteworthy enough for a nosy reporter. Sorry – editor. Blogger. Whatever. 

“It belongs to my daughter. Now, can we please get on with this? I’m getting cold out here!”

“We could always go inside?” Radcliffe suggested but at his glare, hurried to finally get back on track. “Ah, yes. Sorry. These are the sites,” she handed over the paper, “and here’s the entire history from the browser. Very careless. You should always use a secure server when you research.” She put a second, much thicker pack of papers on the table and pointed to something marked in red at one of the last three pages. “From here on, she suddenly developed an interest in Broadchurch and Wessex County in general, found a link to one of our old articles and then the search ended and I’m guessing she contacted me and Oliver. The date seems about right.”

Despite himself, Hardy was impressed. While he tried to conceal it, Miller had no such inhibitions. “Wow, Maggie – that’s a lot! I don’t know how we can thank you.”

“Oh, your boss already promised me first right to interviews and exclusives to the story once it hits, so I think that’s fine as a thank you.” She winked. 

“Can we use these?” Hardy asked her. “Are these searches and what your IT-friend did legal?”

“Oh, yes. It’s basically his job and while it’s bad etiquette for a reporter to snitch on a colleague, that doesn’t count for police-investigations concerning the death of said reporter. Dom had wondered when Manchester Police would call but since they haven’t yet, he gave it to me. And I’m giving it to you.” With an exaggerated flourish, she handed the papers over to Hardy. “I hope you get the bastard who did this. To her and to you.” Her smile was kind and it made him feel slightly shitty that he’d not offered her the Jammy Dodgers. “Also, that chicken just walked into your kitchen.”

“Fuck,” he groaned and went inside to chase Ellie, a task that he’d become worrisomely good at. Once he’d grabbed her and dumped her back in her pen – how the hell did that stupid hen always get out, there wasn’t even a hole in the fencing! – he returned to the terrace. Radcliffe had left and Miller was nibbling on the last piece of shortbread, staring at the papers in her hands. 

“Anything catching your eye?” Hardy sagged into his chair with a sigh and put the Jammy Dodgers in front of her before stretching his legs. 

“Not that I’d know. Never heard of these sites, but I guess we should cross-reference them with the Mayfords.”

“I’ll send them to my friend in Glasgow. He’s already snooping around the web, maybe something’ll ping.” He took a sip from his tea – cold, of course – and just leaned back, letting some of the tension he’d been ignoring the whole day spill out of his body. Out here with just the ocean and the clucking from the hens and Miller dipping her biscuits into her tea, it felt like he could fall asleep easily. 

“So, where’s this mobile device?”

Her voice startled him from drifting off. “What?”

“The mobile device. Maggie said Phyllis copied files from her work-computer to a mobile device. There was no laptop of USB-drive or even a fucking data-CD. Not even a floppy disk. Where are those things. And – while we’re at it – where are all her clothes and luggage? She didn’t come here with only one outfit. She’s not you.”

“Oi, I do have more than one outfit. But yeah, good question. If I’d just gotten rid of a body, where would I leave her possessions? And – did they collect her things before or after putting her in the forest? Have they used my car for that or her rental or their own?”

“I wouldn’t use my own car. Too many possibilities of leaving evidence. Hm, but they did use their own car for getting her into the forest… So what, are they just dumb or did they not have the rental in their possession yet?”

“We don’t know how she died. All we know from the preliminary is that there are no obvious signs of violence. Also no rope-marks on her at all.”

A brief glance flicked to his wrists and he pretended not to notice. They seemed to itch at the attention. “Do they hurt?” Miller asked, apparently not satisfied with just having a quick peak. Hardy wanted nothing more than to grouch at her to stop being so nosy, mind her own business and go home, but she’d been restraining her worry over a week now for his sake and he decided to give a little. 

He tugged his shirt up so she could see. “Not much, no. Just look bloody awful.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the sight. Usually, he kept them hidden not just to shield them from strangers but also to be able to ignore their existence. They were the last physical remains of his misadventure after all his other bruises had stopped being more than shallow yellow blotches, and while he didn’t like them, he wondered how much worse it would be if there’d been nothing at all. At least with them, he _knew_ it had happened. 

With no memory of the events, he’d wondered if he hadn’t made it all up in his mind. 

Miller winced and hissed. “Wow, that looks nasty.” She grabbed his left hand, so quick he didn’t have a chance to pull it away, and turned it over to look at the wrist. “You took off the bandage.”

“Nearly healed. Better let it breathe.” Staring down at his arm was slightly surreal. In the places where the ties had been on his right wrist, the marks were turning yellow and green. The bruising that had surrounded the actual rope-marks had already vanished and the leftovers were sharp and ugly. 

On his left, everything was more colourful and if forced to, he’d have to admit it still hurt sometimes. Not just itching from healing skin but a bone-deep ache like he’d strained something. Which, come to think of it, was highly possible.

With a kind and only slightly worried smile, Miller patted his arm and let go. “Right. I’ll better be off now. I promised the boys we’ll go to the football-game tomorrow. That means getting breakfast at The Bakery, that’s our little ritual for Football-Sundays. Do you want to come?” It seemed like a spur-of-the-moment suggestion but her smile was open and it sounded like she meant it wholeheartedly. 

Oh, what the hell – why not? Wasn’t like they had anything better to do. “Yah, ‘kay. Might be nice.” And he delighted in surprising her with his acceptance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I apologize for any errors concerning journalist- etiquette. I'm sure I'm completely wrong. I'm also sure the Manchester Police is very competent in real life!_


	16. Chapter 16

Sunday with Hardy and Daisy was strangely not awkward or weird. They’d gone to The Bakery for the breakfast-buffet and eaten so much they couldn’t move – well, Ellie had, and Daisy had tucked in quite well. Tom, while eating more than his own weight in pancakes, eggs and sausages, was still nimble and Hardy had eaten picky and randomly and with healthy things like fruit and vegetables on his toast and was probably still agile and fit. Ellie felt like a walking jelly baby and couldn’t have cared less. 

The game was… well. Football. She knew the rules, knew which team to cheer for – the one Tom cheered for, duh – and that was it. It had never interested her, not like it did Tom and Jo… Ah, fuck it. Yes, Joe! Joe fucking Miller had loved football! He’d loved football and he’d loved sports in general. He’d loved cooking and watching silly Disney movies with his family and he’d loved playing with his sons and once upon a time, he must have loved Ellie. 

_So, there!_ she thought viciously. _See, world? Yes, I loved my husband and I miss the times we had together, even now. I miss him being my rock and being there for me, and mostly I miss the fact that I’ll never be allowed to miss him in that way because all our memories are tainted. See? I know it, I allowed it in my head. Can I put it to rest now, please, and forget about him forever?_

“Miller?” Ellie nearly dropped dead, startled by the sudden voice behind her back.

“Bloody hell! What’s the matter with you!”

Hardy held up a steaming paper-cup, looking slightly shocked at her unexpected outburst. “I thought you’d like a coffee, but I can give it to someone else if you don’t want it. Jeez.”

“No, give it here,” she demanded and nearly yanked it out of his hand with a mumbled “thanks,” slightly ashamed for her reaction. He’d been trying to be a normal human being today, maybe for his daughter or maybe for his own sake, but she knew he was struggling. 

He’d never been one for social gatherings, so the awkwardness wasn’t new. But the way he moved was different, his eyes glancing over people, assessing them for threat-potential worse than usual. The way he tried to keep his back to either a wall or someone he trusted was certainly new, and his efforts to stick close to her and more or less bribing himself into her proximity by paying for everything and bringing her unasked-for coffee was not only new but also quite disturbing. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it, but that didn’t make it any better.

“Sorry for that. Football makes me grumpy.”

“Really? Why’re we here, then?”

“Tom loves it,” she said and smiled towards her oldest who had his brother on his shoulder so Fred could see over the crowds. “And by the way things are going, Fred will soon, too. Oh, look,” she pointed. “There’s Beth. And is that Mark with her? I didn’t know he was in town.”

Hardy looked but before long, his eyes swerved past the Latimers and back again over the crowds, momentarily resting on Daisy’s head with a smile but then moving on once more. He shifted and Ellie looked about and found a spot near one of the wooden separations. “God, why are there never any seats at these things. Come, there’s a wall, I want to lean against something, my feet are killing me.” 

She thought that might have been too obvious but Hardy followed her without a word and Ellie felt him relax instantly once they were standing with their backs to the wood. _It will pass,_ she thought. _Won’t take long until he’s your annoying boss again and you can stop worrying and fussing._

Beth came over and they chatted about Mark and the girls and the separation that wasn’t yet a divorce and might not be but could be and later, before they made their way home, she asked Ellie and Tom and Fred over for a barbeque next week. 

Two years ago, Ellie couldn’t have dreamed of having this sort of friendship with Beth again and she’d pray to any god that demanded it to let her keep it, at least let her keep _this_. 

“You’re looking chipper,” Hardy commented when they were trudging towards home. “And moody. A strange combination.”

“It’s nothing,” she said at first, but a few minutes later, she explained. “Just… Beth. I’m so lucky to have her again and it made me happy and then it made me sad because Joe nearly destroyed our friendship along with everything else he’d touched. I’m not sure I can ever escape him. Certainly seems to be the bane of my life forever,” she sniffed. 

“Yapp. That’s what they’ll do. Stick in your head and refuse to let go until you find a way to put them to rest. Some of them stay persistent.”

“What, do you have a secretly murdering, paedophiliac husband somewhere in your history, too?” Ellie snapped. How dare he think he could understand!

Hardy didn’t react to her anger and stayed calm, hands in his pockets and eyes away from her but more relaxed than he’d been all day. “Nope. Doesn’t mean I don’t have my own versions of things making a ruckus now and then. Some of them have been quiet for ages now, but there’s still some popping up now and then.”

Right. Of course. He’d lived with the ghost of Pippa for years and that might not have been the only one. And then there was Tess and their shared history, which would not be so different from her own occasional bouts of missing Joe. Except for the murdering and all that, of course. 

“Have you had many murder-cases before Pippa’s?” she asked, smiling at Tom and Daisy having fun with Fred in front of them. Daisy pretended to run away from him while Tom used a long, thin stick to tease his brother once he was trying to catch Daisy. Fred was howling with laughter, and it warmed Ellie’s heart.

“A few. Mostly in Glasgow.” He huffed. “When I moved to Sandbrook, I thought it would be a nice and quiet change from there. Oh, the irony…”

“You’ve been an officer in Scotland, then?” He stopped and stared at her and Ellie had to halt her steps, too. “What?”

“How can you not know I’m from Scotland?” he asked, completely baffled. “Did you think I just inherited the accent, or what?”

She giggled. “No, course not. I know you’re Scottish – hard not to. But I didn’t know that’s where you started in the police.” Stupid, really, but she’d somehow assumed he’d always been in Sandbrook, like he’d been hatched there from an egg.

A Scottish egg. A Scottish lizard-egg. Or an alligator-egg. No – a dragon-egg!

“I sort of thought you came down to Sandbrook for that.”

Shaking his head, he resumed walking. “Unbelievable.”

“So what? You started out as a copper in Glasgow? How was that?”

“Fantastic. Ever been to Glasgow?” She shook her head. “You’ll like it. Lots of smiling people up there,” he grouched but it held mostly amusement. “First week at work, husband killed his wife with a fire-axe and then went for us uniforms in a fit of rage, nearly took one of us out, too. He’s one of the more persistent buggers in here,” he knocked on his head. 

Ellie had no problem believing it. Yikes. “And then? Did you go to Sandbrook to get promoted?”

“What is this, ‘This is your live’? If you need to know, I was already DI Hardy when we moved to Sandbrook. Barely,” he added quietly. “Tess was still a Constable then but she quickly earned her spurs.”

He must have met Tess in Scotland, then. Funny, she couldn’t quite picture her among all those grouchy, taciturn Scots up there, but maybe that was why they’d decided to move to Sandbrook in the end. Getting information out of Hardy was like pulling teeth, though, and he refused to answer more of her questions. Ellie felt too good to badger him, and they walked the rest of the way in companionable silence whenever they weren’t teasing the kids.

They reached her door and said their goodbyes and with a sting in her heart Ellie noticed how quickly Daisy tugged herself right next to her father the moment they left, quite obviously trying to be his protection now that they were alone again. She saw him tease her about it and Daisy giggled, but it didn’t change anything. 

_A curse to all you bastards out there_ , she thought when she closed the door. _May you all rot in hell._


	17. Chapter 17

On Monday, twelve days after he’d woken up in the field, things started to tumble into place. After days of being short-staffed, they finally had enough people for a meeting and giving out tasks to more than just Miller and Harford and he happily appointed DSs Stevenson and Hagarth to finding his stupid car while Miller grinned when they groaned. He didn’t know what they’d done to deserve her gloating but he was glad to have inadvertently made them pay.

Since the car-search was off his table for now, he started on the paperwork that had been accumulating during the week, leaving the rest to Miller for now, as it was ultimately her case. He was just starting to make headway with the expenses when Alistair called and excitedly told him that he’d found gold thanks to the new information Hardy had given him Saturday. He was sending everything he had over in a mail. 

It arrived nearly at the same time as DC Harford shouted a loud ‘Yesss’ from her desk, and he briefly wondered if it was worth leaving the e-mail for later. Curiosity won over, though, and he hit ‘print’ because reading things on paper was easier and he was allowed to make notes on them. 

“Sir, we found a garage that serviced Mayford’s car about a week ago. A flat tyre and they noticed some scratches on the paint but Mayford insisted that it wasn’t important enough to fix. The mechanic said it was a pity, since his Golf was otherwise in fantastic condition and well cared-for.”

He looked up from his lists and blinked at Miller, not quite up to understanding after being buried in small text for a while. When it clicked, he smiled a humourless smile. “That’s good. I’ve got a very compelling reason to have him come and talk to us, so we can add the tyre to the list of suspicious activities, too.” He held out the paper and Miller took it. From her frown, she didn’t quite catch on.

“That friend from Glasgow I talked about? He searched the sites we got from Radcliffe for Mayford’s IP address. He’s a member on three forums for kinky tastes in the bedroom and Alistair compared Mayford’s posts with those from Phyllis Simons and on one site,” he pointed to the page Miller was holding right now, “they had a longer conversation with each other. There is talk about private messaging and Alistair’s trying to get into the PMs but the administrator is not yet willing to let him without a warrant. He’ll try to get one but it might take a while.”

“Wow. So…” she sat on the couch and stared at the paper in her hand. “Is that enough to question him? It’s pretty circumstantial so far, as I see it.”

“It is. But look at the dates. He messaged with Phyllis for nearly a week, and the last open conversation, the one that said they’d continue via PM was three days before she vanished. At the very least, he could be a witness and have valuable information about her whereabouts between her death and meeting Radcliffe and your nephew.”

Miller gnawed on the knuckle of her finger. “Yes. But… I’d really like to have a bit more. I don’t want him slipping through our fingers when we confront him with what we know and warn him that we’re on his tail. If he is even the culprit.”

He took off his glasses and leaned back in his seat. “You don’t think he is?” 

“Well – no. I mean yes. I mean – I’m pretty sure we’re on the right track with him. There is a lot of evidence pointing towards him, but so far it all hangs on your statement and a bit of guesswork,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. “If we were to look for more evidence on him directly, that’s a very narrow reason to do so. What if they dismiss your recollection in court? It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she hurried but he understood. 

“But it’s not exactly solid evidence for anything,” Hardy sighed. “You’re right.” His eyes burned from reading the fine-print and his wrist ached and twinged unpleasantly. “No, you’re right. I couldn’t even say who the woman was I spoke to. And we need every t crossed doubly.” He massaged his temple. “Right. So, what else do we have? Anything new from forensics? What about Phyllis’s body?”

Miller hurried out to get her files and slipped back inside. “So, the coroner’s done with the autopsy this morning. We have … ugh, very advanced stages of rotting,” she scrunched her nose in distaste, “and decomposition. She’d been in the woods for approximately a week, but that’s a very careful estimate. Being out in the open and with the – uhm, chewing on her, she could have been there between as long as twelve days and as few as four. But we know she’d been alive on Sunday the 1st, because she spoke to Maggie and Olly. Which means she can’t have been dead for longer than nine days since we found her on the 9th. Right. Does that help us?”

Hardy wiped his hand over his face, trying to stroke some intelligence in. He was only moderately successful. “Her rental car has been returned on the 4th. Not by her, as seen on the camera tapes. Are we safe to assume she’d been dead by then?”

“No. Not confirmed. She could have still been alive at that point, there’s no evidence that she’d been dead.”

“Okay. Fine. Yes, okay… I got nothing.” He leaned back against his chair to stare at the ceiling. “No prints. No clear evidence that Mayford or his wife was on the scene. The tapes from where someone stole the plates to mount at my car aren’t giving us anything. For god’s sake, this is annoying!”

“Wait, the rental-agency!” Miller sat up straight. “Your car was on the scene at the rental agency. That will be enough to connect you getting knocked out on that by-road with the returning of the rental. You were definitely there – the watch proves it. That by-road leads to the site the victim was found, so the persons who knocked you out must have also been the ones who returned the car since they drove yours. If they returned the car –“

“They must have been with Phyllis at one point, and assuming – which we can and should by now – that they also were in that forest, it’s very, _very_ likely that they have something to do with her death. Oh, that’s good, Miller. At least we have that thread fixed!” 

He stood and walked out to the time-line on CID’s big whiteboard to add the connections. Miller followed, chewing on her pen. “What we need is a connection with the Mayfords so we can finally get enough to have them in for questioning. Preferably something solid. A print would be marvellous…”

Miller’s phone rang in her pocket and she quickly accepted the call. “Miller, Wessex Poli- yes. Yes, I remember. What?” Her eyes popped wide and she grinned at Hardy, lit up like an excited puppy. “Oh, don’t touch anything, we’ll be right there!” 

She hung up and grabbed her jacket. “Someone must like us up there.That was Eric from the rental place. Remember that the car Phyllis had rented had been cleaned? Turns out the cleaner found a USB-stick underneath one of the seats and forgot to hand it in until he found it in his pocket yesterday.”

Hardy rushed into his office to get his own jacket and trailed after her, quickly reaching Miller with his longer legs. “That better not be her Greatest Hits collection,” he tried to joke, but his heart was beating hard against his chest. Maybe they would finally get lucky.

O o o o O O o o o O

Eric Hasland had obviously been waiting and waved them inside the minute they stepped out of the car. “Detective Miller, I’m so sorry! This goes against our policy, Marvin should have given the stick to one of us once he found it, but he swears he forgot and just put it in his pocket! It’s tiny, so I can’t blame him for not noticing, not really… I hope he didn’t destroy any evidence. This is about the disappeared reporter, right? Do you think the Mafia had something to do with it? Would the Mafia even be able to find this place?”

“I highly doubt it,” Hardy muttered, taking a look around the small office. “Can we get the evidence now?”

“Yes, please,” Ellie added pointedly, with a smile. Her boss was being a grumpy shit again since he’d stepped into her car and just because she understood his frustration didn’t mean he had to be rude to people who had done nothing wrong. “And we need to know who touched it and – I’m sorry about this, but we need the prints of everyone who did.” She smiled again, trying to be reassuring. “Just for elimination.”

“Right, of course. I told Marvin it’ll come to this. He had the thing in his pocket for over a week now – do you think there might still be something on it?”

“We won’t know until we check. And we need the stick for that.” Hardy glared, but at Ellie’s sharp nudge he added a gruntled “Please”. 

“Oh, yes! Yes – it’s here. I put it in a plastic-bag but uh… I did touch it, so I guess my prints will be on them?”

“That’s alright,” Ellie assured even though Brian would throw a fit. “We’ll just take your prints and Martin’s-“

“Marvin.”

“Right – Marvin’s and then we’ll see what happens. Oh – did either of you check what’s on the stick?” 

“Uh, well – I didn’t, but I can’t be sure Marve didn’t, so you’d have to ask him. He’s out back, cleaning.”

Ellie bagged the stick, which was sadly one of those very tiny ones, about the size of a two-pronged Lego-piece. It probably wouldn’t matter who had touched the thing, as there was hardly any space for leaving even one recognizable print. Well – maybe on the lid.

Marvin Jones was just a kid. Eighteen, he said sullenly when asked by a similarly sullen Hardy, and he was only working part-time to get some spending money. No, he hadn’t checked for the content of the stick – it wasn’t allowed and he said he feared it might contain kiddie-stuff and he wouldn’t have nothing to do with that. His whole body projected defensiveness and recalcitrance but he was helpful with every request they had. He gave them his prints without needing persuasion and once they had Eric’s as well and got their statements taken down and signed, she and Hardy made their way to SOCO to let them have a look at the thing. It was already half-past two and Ellie felt her stomach rumble. It would have to wait for a proper meal but she took out one of the goodie bars she had in her purse. Hardy, as per usual, refused his half. 

His loss. The things were delicious. 

“And you expect my people to find a print on this?” Brian asked, wide eyed when he stared at the stick in the bag. “You don’t ask much, do you?”

“Can you or can you not,” Hardy grouched but, at her glare, relented his tone a little. “It would be most helpful but if not, it can’t be helped.” 

Brian raised his eyebrows and grinned at Ellie. “You’re doing well with him, Ell. A few more years and he might actually use ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. I won’t hold my breath for a ‘good morning’, though.” 

She tried to suppress her own smile but it was probably not successful. 

“Oh, shut up,” Hardy muttered and rolled his eyes. “If there’s nothing on the outside, we need to check for content. I take it your team is up for that, or do we have to send it off to someone better qua – equipped?”

“Quaequipped, huh?” Brian smirked. “Good catch, there, Sir. We should be able to check for anything obvious. If you need deeper searches of removed files or hidden graphics or something, we’ll let you know. We’re not quaequipped enough for that.” He winked at Ellie and held up the evidence bag. “I’ll let you know once I have results of the print-search. Might take a few hours.”

Ellie noticed Hardy taking a deep breath to respond, probably to protest the length of time or maybe just to get a little jibe in as well, so she hurried to interrupt. “That’s fine. We can get something to eat in the meantime. I’m half-starved.” She tugged at her boss’s sleeve and he followed, scowling at her until she let go. She refused to apologize, though. 

They went to the sandwich-place outside the station and took a seat at their usual bench, red cliffs right behind them and a very glorious view of the bustling entrance to the Broadchurch Police in front. She’d resisted the pull of the chippy and gone for a cheese-sandwich, but compared to what Hardy usually had in his lunch-box these days, it tasted like cardboard. 

“Ugh,” she complained, pulling the two slices of bread apart, removed the old cucumber and used it to swipe away about half of the mayonnaise. “You need to ask your daughter where she got her bread. This is slightly better than an old sponge, and that’s only because it doesn’t even smell like anything. Aren’t you hungry, Sir? Where’s you little lunch-pack?”

He bent over, elbows resting on his knees, and massaged his neck. “Upstairs. Don’t wanna go and fetch it, I’ll eat it later. And she baked the bread herself.”

Ellie nearly choked on the lettuce. “What? She _baked_ bread for you? Wow, please tell me you’re being grateful about that, or I’ll come over and kick your arse. Sir.”

He chuckled and returned to an upright position, still looking slightly pale. “I am, believe me. You want, I can ask her to make one for you, too.” His eyes held a mischievous little twinkle. “Might as well get the most out of this before she returns back to normal.”

“Don’t you dare,” she snickered. “Poor girl – she’s doing her best and her grumpy old dad abuses his power. That’s right out of Cinderella, if I’m not mistaken.” 

“Would that make me the evil sister or the stepmother? I’ll ask her, she can always say no. I bet she’ll be delighted, though.” His smile was tender and a little wistful, the way it always got when Daisy was the topic. She wondered if that was a Hardy-thing or a Dad-thing, this shining pride and slight apprehension when it came to their daughters. Had her own father ever looked like that when she or Lucy had come up?

“So.” The sandwich was too boring and smeary to eat and Ellie packed it up to throw it away later, or bring it home for Tom. Her son would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down right now, so he might actually be happy about her little gift. “What are we hoping for on the stick?”

Hardy leaned back and stuck his legs out, looking like a statue that someone had felled and draped on the bench. “Prints? Best case – Mayford’s prints. Which means there will be none from him because it’s the sort of case where nothing really fits well enough. As for the content… I really don’t know. Still hoping for anything but her play-list, really, but I’m not holding my breath yet.”

Ellie pulled a face. “Yeah, probably better not to speculate. Shouldn’t someone have found your car by now? If the Mayfords – well, no. If the people who stole it used it to put you in that field, where is it?”

“Good question. Where’s the field in relation to the Mayford’s house and the woods? Anything in that area where one could hide a car? A shed? Another forest? A scrapyard?”

Ellie blinked and sat up straight. “I… Oh, let’s go back in, I need to check something.” 

She rushed inside, barely noticing that Hardy was following. They didn’t have a map that covered all important places at once and she had to get one from the map-room. 

“Alright,” she said, spreading the map out over the floor of Hardy’s office because all the tables were occupied or too narrow. “So, this is where we found Phyllis,” she laid a pen on the place. “Here’s … no, wait, here’s the farm they stole the plates from. And uhm… Rental agency’s here in West Milton.” An eraser and a little pin were placed. “Where’s Mayford’s address?” 

He read it out and she found it and put a mug on the area, finishing it up with another pen for the field. Since this wasn’t a great American movie, having the locations noted that way didn’t suddenly reveal a hidden pattern or a sudden insight into how to solve this. It did, however, show Ellie what she’d thought she’d find. “There.” 

Not far from the route that anyone driving from West Milton to Mayford’s address would take, there was a small farm-road that led to a quarry-lake. “I’ve been there with Joe and Tom a few times in the summer, when the beach was so crowded that we just wanted to have a bit of privacy. The quarry’s been off work for years now, and everything’s overgrown and very quiet. It’s lovely, a few bushes, a bit of a beach even. We had shade and water and we…” She stopped, wistfully thinking back to the happy moments with little Tom splashing in the water with his father while Ellie sat underneath a willow and read a book. Later that day, a few more locals had come to enjoy the place away from all the tourists and someone had put up a barbeque and everyone had been so happy and relaxed. She couldn’t remember who’d been there, but she clearly remembered Joe and Tom laughing in the water, bright and care-free. _Bastard_ she thought bitterly while trying to keep her tears down. _You stupid, stupid, fucking bastard, why couldn’t you have just killed yourself instead of Danny and left me the chance to grieve for you!_

She coughed. “Anyway. It’s not far and it would be easy to hide a car there. Don’t think too many people go there. It’s just a road in and back, no round-way so probably not too many dog-walkers in the area.” Ellie looked up at him and smiled brightly, wriggling her eyebrows. “How about we take another drive?” She wasn’t sure if she’d managed to deflect attention from her tear-brightened eyes but he nodded.


	18. Chapter 18

Ellie drove twice past the turnoff to the lake and had to endure some grumpy mocking for it. She asked Hardy if he’d prefer to walk and he said that it couldn’t possibly take longer than this. Magnanimously, she let him stay in the car and managed to hit the junction on the third try. 

“Stop,” Hardy said with his hand on her arm but Ellie had already halted the car right after leaving the main road, only a few feet into the junction. The vegetation had clearly tried to take back what summer-guests had claimed for a while, but it was obvious that it had been driven on not too long ago. The tall stalks of the moor grass were bent and flattened by two visible tyre-tracks and there were broken-off branches from the willows at the side of the small path. 

“How did anyone get to the lake through this?” Hardy asked when they had stepped out of the car and Ellie had exchanged her indoor-shoes for her sensible boots. “How did anyone even find this?”

“Used to be less overgrown. I don’t even know who found it, but we could drive in here, park over there,” she pointed to a flat spot that was now crowded with small basket-willows “and walk the rest of the way.” She led them, maybe five minutes through the undergrowth. It was much easier to walk than in the small forest, the ground beneath their feet still a gravelled road despite the grass and moss and endearing little trees that tried to find hold. The path curved a little to the right and soon they couldn’t see the main road anymore.

The lake itself was as beautiful as Ellie remembered. The gravelled track led right up to its edge, a sandy brim marking the stop of the track. Tom had loved rushing down from here right into the water, but the adults and less adventurous kids had taken the path to the right, where the landscape naturally sloped down towards the water and the beach began.

At this time in early spring, most of the vegetation was still brown and yellow apart from the willows with their first, tentative leaves and their fluffy white-and-yellow catkins. A few birds were twittering already and if the reason they were here hadn’t been so serious, Ellie would have loved to sit down by the water and just relax, let her feet rest and her mind wallow in memories that nobody could take from her, for better or worse. 

As it were, the reason they were here at all stared them in the face. 

The brim, Tom’s favourite playground for two or three summers, had broken off to the left of the path, where the greenery had been low and mostly consisted of grass. It was easy to see that the break-off had been recent, the earth still freshly reddish-brown instead of greenish from the moss and flowers and lichen. The reason it had tumbled was just as easy to see. 

“Well,” Hardy said, staring at the underside of the half-submerged car in the lake. “I guess I’ve gotten off lightly.”

Standing so close, Ellie could feel his full-body shudder at the sight and she swallowed a lump. He wasn’t wrong, and the thought was chilling. Considering that he’d probably been very unconscious, whoever had abducted him could have just as easily left him in his car where he would have drowned. She felt a shiver creep up her spine, too, and had to take a step back so she wouldn’t have to see it anymore. “I’ll call SOCO,” she said and pulled out her phone, adding “don’t fall down,” because Hardy was still standing at the brim with a far-away look in his eyes. He visibly pulled himself together and joined her, taking a closer look at the tyre-marks that led up to the drop-off point. 

While they waited for SOCO and more uniforms at the junction – and how absurd to be doing this same thing twice in only three days – Ellie contemplated the fate of this wonderful little place. “I guess they’ll have to use a crane to get it out of there,” she murmured, looking over the path they’d just walked on. “All this will be driven on and squished, maybe the lake will be ruined from the fuel and oil in your car. It’s sad – I really liked this place.”

“It’ll grow back.” Hardy was leaning on the hood of her car, staring at nothing. “Nature always grows back when you let it. Just look at all those castle-ruins in this country. Every nook and cranny is used by flowers and grass and moss and if you don’t fight it, even trees. No matter what happened at a place, no matter how many atrocities were committed – once people stop using it, nature comes and claims the spaces back.” He looked up towards the road, where they could see the procession of police-vehicles approaching. “It’s comforting.”

“Yeah, well. If there’s oil in the water from your bloody car, not even moss can save it,” she insisted, crossing her arms. 

Hardy stood up as the patrol-car slowed down to stop beside them. “Oh, so it’s my fault now?” He waved to Bob Daniels who was already pulling out the tape and mobile barriers for the road. 

“No, of course not,” Ellie huffed. “Just… Makes me angry on top of all this. Not enough they killed Phyllis and did this shit to you, they had to go and ruin one of the most beautiful spots around here?”

“We can add it to the list of crimes,” he answered, slightly amused. “Brian looks incredibly grumpy, don’t you think?”

She winced. He wasn’t wrong. “Really, Ell? You couldn’t have waited until tomorrow to find this? Another site with barely any evidence except old, useless tyre-tracks?”

Ellie grimaced and gestured angrily towards the quarry. “Well, there’s a whole car in the lake there. Go nuts.” She didn’t feel the urge to be social right now and while it wasn’t Brian’s fault, his attitude was not exactly helping her mood. Any other time would have been fine for friendly banter, but she kept glancing at Hardy and his closed-off expression and all she felt was a wave of irritation. 

Bloody hell – maybe being a grumpy Scot was contagious.

O o o o O O o o o O

On his way home, after exhausting hours of paperwork for the police-barriers, expenses and a very uninspired press-release, Hardy felt the desire to remove his shoes and walk barefoot along the beach. It had been… ugh, ages since he’d done something like that without need, but the cold sand under his feet and between his toes settled him in a way he hadn’t been able to feel since leaving the office for the stupid quarry.

The rushing from the waves was calming where it once had been preying on his nerves and the silent squish-squish when the water retreated over the rough sand encouraged him to take a deep breath of salty air. 

Water. He still felt reluctant to be too close and having his feet wetted by the sea always made him want to jump out of his skin. And now that he’d seen the car – _his_ car – upside-down in a lake that was green and murky and silent and so, so similar to the river he’d found Pippa in, he couldn’t quite get warm anymore. 

What was the matter with him! He was fine, wasn’t he? Nothing had happened, he’d been left in a field, been a little decorated with unamusing words and that’d been it! It was just his bloody car in the lake, not him. Nobody had been inside his car when it was dumped in and he was fine, fine, fine, _bloody fine_! 

Angrily, Hardy pulled at his hair while he watched the gulls in the distance follow a last fishing-boat, complaining loudly about the lack of scraps from the fishermen. 

This was nothing. Nothing! It was just his car. Phyllis was dead, and the people responsible for that had also been responsible for his loss of memory, for the utterly black hole inside his mind that obliterated nearly ten hours. But what were those few hours weighed against a whole life? He really should get a grip, this was utterly ridiculous. 

On the metal part of the USB drive, Brian’s team had found a print that matched Phyllis’s, so they knew it was hers and now they only had to get to what was on it. Some encrypted files, Brian had said and they’d sent it off to the experts to get the content. 

Maybe tomorrow they’d have more information – maybe, hopefully tomorrow, they would have enough to talk to Mayford and his wife and maybe, hopefully tomorrow, that slimy piece of shit would make a mistake or confess and everything could go back to normal and he would be able to stop looking over his shoulder in a crowd and sleep without Daisy clinging to him so hard he couldn’t even get to the loo without waking her, not to mention going outside to stand on the terrace until his heart started beating in a normal rhythm again instead of the insane, running tumble that woke him at least once a night. 

After a few more deep breaths, he resumed his trek through the sand towards his home. Strange, he thought as he came closer, for him to fall so in love with a house that was so exposed. He liked his privacy; he was fine with a few known people around him and very much not so fine with people he didn’t know or worse, didn’t like. A house hidden away in some ‘dingy Scottish glen’, as Tess had mocked him once, would be ‘suitable for his nature’, she’d said. 

She hadn’t been that far off. And yet he’d decided on the one house visible from nearly everywhere, even visible from the bloody bench in front of the bloody station. Everyone would know if he was home or not, and he never gave a damn. 

The view was very good, he admitted, so maybe that was part of it. Or maybe, as Miller had joked, he liked to be above things, liked sitting in a castle on top of a hill, surveying his peasants working in the field. He’d stared at her until she’d laughed and apologized in her way, explaining that it was still very fitting for him to be right in the middle and still very much apart. 

Well, what did she know. 

He’d reached his home now and slapped the sand from his feet, not bothering to put on his socks before entering. They were pretty rank anyway and went in with the washing he put on before taking off his tie. Whatever strange ideas he’d come up with during his walk, about living on a mountain like an old dragon from the tales, it had calmed him down a lot. When Daisy walked out of the kitchen with flour-prints on her jeans and a hesitant smile on her face, the last remains of unease fell off. “Hey darlin’. Can you show me how you make the bread? I don’t think I can live without it anymore when you decide that your dad is too old to have his lunch packed for him.” 

Daisy rolled her eyes and gave him a quick kiss to the cheek. “Right, as if you’ll actually bake one yourself. But fine, come on. It’s really simple, you just need a bit of time and patience so the dough can rest.”

Time, patience and rest. Well. Didn’t that sound like very solid advice? “Lead on then, Mac Dough.” 

“Aww, Dad! Don’t be so embarrassing!”


	19. Chapter 19

Tuesday, Ellie was the first person to enter CID. It was a rare occurrence; usually she manged to breeze in just barely on time – or too late – or came up together with someone else. The room was empty and silent in a way it never was and the air smelled of floor-cleaner and sweat and tons of paper and the icky scent from the printer. 

Wrinkling her nose, Ellie opened the windows to let some air in, glad that it was calm outside and no papers would be shuffled by a sudden gust of wind. With a grin, she remembered several incidents were they had tried to improve the office-air and they’d had to scramble for hours to get the papers that had flown all over the room back in the right order. 

The coffee-pot was empty, luckily, and she made a fresh pot and set to making herself a breakfast of toast and marmite. She usually preferred jam or jelly, but the one glass in the fridge had a very suspicious tint that stood in crass contrast with the label. Surely ‘strawberries’ didn’t come in that colour?

After swivelling once in Hardy’s chair and snooping through the boring paperwork on his table just because she could, Ellie went to her own desk and opened the computer-screen, hoping to get some work done before everyone trickled in. 

It was a quarter past seven, and she hadn’t slept even a wink. 

She didn’t know the reason, just that sleep had evaded her throughout the night. First it had been thoughts about the case running circles in her head, then a short nap that had ended with a crushing nightmare she couldn’t remember, then Fred had whimpered and she’d just _had_ to console him and she’d tried to read to fall asleep – usually a sure thing – but once she heard the morning-birds sing through her window, Ellie had simply given up and gone downstairs to make breakfast for her boys. 

They both had been quite grumpy about the early wake-up, but since Tom had ‘suddenly remembered’ that he’d ‘forgotten’ to do his homework yesterday, it had turned out in his favour. And Fred would simply have a nap in kindergarten. It was open from seven onwards and while that was a relief, as soon as the bloody case was done, she’d make sure she would be home more and finish work before bloody sunset!

Her boss would have to arrange that, or she’d kick his skinny arse!

“Morning Ellie.” Orrin yawned as he came in at seven-forty, making a beeline towards the coffee before even putting his jacket on his chair. “You’re up early. Is old Grump-Face making you do overtime again?”

She glared at his back. “He’s not here yet, and no. And how about you call him that to his face instead of always sniping at his back when he’s not in the room, huh?” 

Orrin turned and raised his eyebrows. “Wow, tetchy! And I would, but he’s not here so you’ll excuse me if I say it as I see it. He’s an old grumpy sod, and we all know it. ‘s all I’m sayin’, nothing more than that.”

“Miller, Hagarth.”

To Ellies utter delight, Orrin actually jumped half a foot in the air and dropped his coffee-mug when Hardy spoke, as he casually strolled through the room. Grumpy, maybe. But he sure could be soft-footed when he wanted to be. 

“Ah, Sir…” Orrin stuttered, not quite sure if he needed to apologize or if getting the coffee cleaned off took priority. “Morning, Sir.”

Hardy grunted something and nodded towards the mess on the floor, making his way to his office. “Oh, and Hagarth,” he said just as he slipped inside, “I’m five years younger than you are.” 

Ellie had to cover her mouth with her hand to stop the giggles at Orrin’s bright red face and quickly turned her eyes back towards her screen. At once, the incident was forgotten and she read, transfixed, what had been hiding in her e-mails. “Bloody hell,” she muttered and was out of her chair and in Hardy’s office before she even realized that had been her intention. 

“Sir!” 

“They found my socks,” he interjected before she could tell him about the news. “In my car, which is actually not the last place I’d have looked.”

“Yes, yes – fine, socks, blabla,” Ellie stopped him and he stared at her over the rim of his glasses, looking like an astonished meerkat. “We can get Mayford in here today!”

All his fake outrage died down and he was up from his seat smoothly. “How?”

“The USB-drive. Phyllis had research about those dating-sites on them and she had her whole conversation with the user ‘Mayfly’ – Mayford, it’s his IP-adress – saved. That, and files about the rape he’d been found guilty of and some other things that isn’t directly related to Mayford but that doesn’t matter because,” she was certain her eyes were sparking, she was so excited about this, “she had saved screenshots of their private messaging! They’d set up a date, Mayford, his wife and Simons. Three days after she talked to Maggie – the same day you went missing.”

He stared at her and for a few moments, Ellie thought he might not have understood what she’d been saying. Had she mumbled? But he blinked himself to the present again. “Miller – I could kiss you.” 

“Ah, please don’t, Sir.” 

But Hardy grinned at her, actually grinned and it was startling to see it in this place. She had seen him grin before, just never at work, as far as she remembered. “You go and get him in for questioning. And I think you should let Harford accompany you to get him, what do you think?”

O o o o O O o o o O

Katie was jittery in the car next to her, biting her lips and jigging her leg until Ellie had enough.

“Stop this, or I’ll let you walk.”

“Sorry, Ma’am. Sorry. I – are we arresting him?”

Ellie sighed and switched on the wipers. It had started to drizzle the moment they’d stepped out of the station and she’d been too excited to finally have something to work with to go back in and get her jacket. Of course the drizzle had turned into a downpour now, and she’d be getting wet. Of bloody course. 

“No, we’re just asking him – very politely – to come in and answer some questions. His wife, too.” 

“Right, right.” Katie bit on the side of her finger. “So we don’t do anything but ask him for an interview?”

“Very politely.” Ellie smiled. “You know. Very, _very_ politely.”

She grinned back. “I can be polite.” They drove a bit further and just before they reached the address, Katie continued. “Thanks for taking me with you. I… I know I wouldn’t have been your first choice. So. Thank you.”

Sighing, Ellie looked over at the young and hopeful and determined face. She shook her head. “You’re right, but that hasn’t got anything to do with you personally. As much as I’m annoyed with you sometimes and as much as I’m still bloody furious about your mess last year – you’re trying your best. So,” she gave her a nod, “I can respect that. Also, I’m daily annoyed at our bloody boss, hasn’t stopped me from working with him and being really good at it, too.”

Maybe, she thought when she watched DC Harford straighten herself and smooth down her jacket, maybe Katie wasn’t so bad. A little bit of polishing, and she might turn out to be a good copper one day. 

“Aaron Mayford?” Katie said when he opened the door to their knock, a very, _very_ polite smile on her face, “Wessex Police. We’d like to have a little conversation with you. And your wife.”

O o o o O O o o o O

Not being able to sit in on the interview of Mayford and his wife was hellishly frustrating. Hardy watched on the little screen, certain that Miller had made the right call to keep him out of the room just yet and still itching to be exactly there.

Mayford had come into the station with the same attitude he’d sported the first time he’d come in – swaggering in confidence that he was being unfairly harassed, that everyone was against him and he had done absolutely nothing wrong and would need apologizing later. Hardy had kept out of his way to the interview-room, not because he felt uncomfortable – he did, but that was no reason to stay away – but because he and Miller had thought out a strategy for the interview. For now, she and Harford would be talking to the Mayfords, trying to find something to latch on to that would break their defences. 

Miller had chosen to talk to Jenna Mayford first while DC Harford had a go at Aaron. He approved of that decision, since Harford had the bite of heavy dislike and had already proven to be able to stand up to his innuendos and slimy attitude. 

Not that Miller wouldn’t be, either. But Jenna Mayford was a yet-unknown quantity and Miller was better suited to tease out how to proceed with her than Harford would be. 

DS Hagarth was sitting in with Miller while DS Stevenson accompanied Harford. Stevenson was good at his job and would know when to step in if things got pear-shaped or wouldn’t lead anywhere, and Hagarth had enough sense to not mess with Miller when she was working. Hardy smiled. Maybe watching from the outside might actually be fun for now. 

He stood to get a cup of tea, smiling at Miller who had the same idea. She sniffed and leaned against the counter. “I’m letting her stew,” she said, taking a sip from her mug. “Like that tea you make. Maybe she’ll get bitter as well.” Her grin was toothy and lacked humour for the situation as a whole and yet seemed to project reassurance towards him. He didn’t need it, he knew she was good, but appreciating things was slowly becoming a habit, it seemed. 

“Wish SOCO would get on with my car. We could sure use more evidence to nail them down.” The pillow-case that was used to blind him had been found drifting in the lake, escaped through the open window somehow. He’d stared at the photograph of the sodden, off-white thing with a sense of detachment, uncertain if he should feel anything, if he should recognize it or in any way react. He had done neither and just filed the picture with the rest of the evidence. 

Even though the fibres matched exactly with the ones from his body, it was still just a pillowcase. 

“Right,” Miller said, visibly steeling herself and shaking herself off, “I’m going in. Is Katie at it already?”

“No. She went to the bathroom.” Hardy could understand. First time he’d been the lead in an interview, he’d nearly puked he’d been so nervous. He might have been the same age as DC Harford then, maybe a bit older. In the end, it hadn’t been so bad but not because of his own superior interview-skills but the complete and utter breakdown of the suspect upon seeing the evidence. He’d confessed not even five minutes in. 

Somehow, he doubted this would be as easy.

“Go get her,” he said to Miller and she balled up her fist, shoulder-high without turning around. Hardy liked seeing her like this, confident, ready to do battle of wits with people who deserved it. With his tea in hand, he returned to the monitor and settled in for a long session. DC Harford passed by the door and he nodded at Stevenson who was trailing behind.

O o o o O O o o o O

When Ellie entered the interrogation-room, Orrin rattled off date and time and persons present for the tape. She kept her gaze on Jenna Mayford during the spiel and settled down in the uncomfortable chair in front of her.

“Mrs Mayford, hello. I’m Detective Inspector Ellie Miller-“

“I know. Your colleague just said that.” Jenna looked sulkily at her fingers, still black from the fingerprint-ink, and Ellie couldn’t yet detect any sense of fear on her. 

“Right, of course.” She smiled. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“Sure. Because my husband made a mistake a few years back and police has no better thing to do than to harass him. Now, apparently, that harassment is spreading to me, too. Where’s Jeremy?”

“Your son? He’s with Constable Frier in the family room. Remember?” Jenna had been present when Adele Frier had taken the toddler, in fact she’d handed her boy over herself. Maybe it was simply unease with her child in unknown hands, but Ellie suspected Jenna was using her parental status as a deflection. “Don’t worry, PC Frier has three children of her own and two grandchildren. Your son will be fine.” 

“Right. If there’s even a hair wrong on him, you won’t be resting from all the lawsuits we’ll be throwing at you. Wonder what the press will make of it?” Jenna sneered. It made her look vicious. 

Instead of answering, Ellie just smiled. “Do you know a woman named Phyllis Simons?” 

Jenna frowned or pretended to frown. “No, not that I recall.”

“Or maybe Susanne Smith?”

“No. What is this? ‘Know your neighbours?’”

“Maybe you didn’t know her under either name.” Ellie handed over a photo. “For the record, I’m showing Mrs Mayford picture PD-1-75.”

Jenna looked at it briefly and shook her head.

“For the tape, please?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, never seen her.” Then she frowned and pulled the picture closer again. “Wait – isn’t that the journalist who’s gone missing? It was in the papers. Saw her picture.”

“This is Phyllis Simons, yes. And you never met her, never talked to her…?”

“Seriously – are you stupid? I just told you I didn’t. Maybe I bumped into her once in the store or something, but I don’t remember.”

“Alright. Did you ever hear or see your husband corresponding with a woman named either Phyllis Simons or Susanne Smith?“

“Nope.” Jenna was sullen, looking bored. If it weren’t for the slight twitching of her right knee, she would appear completely unbothered. 

“Okay.” Ellie took her time writing something on her notepad. It was just a list of groceries, but Jenna wouldn’t know. After jotting down ‘paprika’, she looked up again. “How’s your sex-life?”

Jenna choked on the water she’d just started sipping. “What?” she sputtered. “What kind of question is that?”

“Oh, a simple one. Your husband, when we talked to him last year-“

“Harassed, more like it,”

“- he said that he likes to tie up his bed-partners. I’m just curious if that’s something you’re comfortable with.”

Jenna glared. “I don’t think that’s really any of your business, DS Miller. I could be asking you the same.”

“You could, but this isn’t me being here for an interview, it’s you. But if you need to know, I prefer my hands free at any time. I like to be an active and equal partner in bed.” Ellie smiled kindly while her insides did a happy-dance at Jenna’s startled expression. She’d not expected such a candid answer.

Jenna sniffed. “It’s not about being passive or unequal. It’s just a kink, nothing serious. So yeah, I like it. Wouldn’t have worked out with Aaron if I didn’t.”

“So he initiates the tying up?”

“Not always. But he gets off on it like you wouldn’t believe, so we both get more from that. Maybe you should try it,” Jenna was trying to rile her up, “might be your husband would still be with you if you had.”

Ellie felt Orrin shift slightly beside her and she secretly touched his foot with hers under the table. By now, people throwing Joe at her had stopped being a surprise. Didn’t make it less painful but she’d learned to hide the sting. Still, it was nice knowing those around her were protective and wouldn’t under normal circumstances let something like this go. 

“And if you two do use ropes-“

“It’s called bondage. Or rope-play, if you prefer to sound cutesy. Don’t be so prude, Detective, it’s nothing bad. Just a bit of spice in an otherwise boring world.”

“As long as everyone consents, I agree.”

“Yeah – and I do consent. Always,” Jenna’s eyes gleamed, “and everywhere. Aaron is _very_ good with a rope.”

Ellie pounced. “Is he? Can I see your wrists?”

Jenna frowned. “What? Why?”

“Well, if he’s so good with a rope, there should be no problem showing me your wrists, right?”

Angrily, Jenna shoved her arms towards her. Orrin stated for the tape that she was doing it. 

“Good,” Ellie said after a careful peek at her skin. It didn’t reveal anything even remotely like what Hardy was sporting on his. “I believe you,” she said, smiling, and Jenna pulled her hands back and leaned away from the table, creating distance between them. 

“What I don’t quite understand – and you can see that as my complete lack of experience with this sort of thing … What about Jeremy?”

Jenna looked like she’d been slapped in the face, the first completely genuine reaction. “What? Are you insane! He’s not part of any of it, he’s a _baby_ , for fuck’s sake! You’re really depraved, how can you even think that!” 

Sadly, the necessity to think exactly that was part of being a police-officer. Ellie had never suspected anything in that direction and maybe she should have, but she’d not seen any indication with either slimy Aaron nor with Jenna Mayford that their child was in any danger. 

Hardy would have, probably, but she hadn’t and she was glad for that little bit of naivety left in her. 

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t implying such a thing at all. I just wonder, as a mother myself, how you manage to have your fun in the bedroom with a little child in the room next to yours. What if he wakes up or needs a nappy-change while you’re tied down? Is your husband the one to do that in such situation? I admit, I don’t think I would feel comfortable and relaxed enough while my kid was still in the needy phase, like your Jeremy.”

Not to mention that at any given time the kid in question could suddenly stand in the doorway of the bedroom, asking for water or wanting to sleep in the bed because of a nightmare. It sure had happened with Tom more than once, and Ellie was just glad that there had never been a point where separating had been problematic. 

She grinned a little at Jenna, who rolled her eyes. “No, Aaron doesn’t change the nappies. He’s hopeless with it, always makes a mess. We go out when we want to have proper sex. Have a babysitter.”

“Oh? Where do you go?” 

“Hotel.”

“Which one?”

“Why, you wanna try it?” Jenna smirked and Ellie kept smiling kindly. 

“Maybe? Who knows what time will bring.”

With another eye-roll, Jenna rattled down a list of hotels in the area, most of them a few towns over.

“Do they specialize in such accommodations?”

“No,” Jenna yawned, “but they have good beds. Sturdy frame, you know?” From her attitude, it looked like she was done speaking openly about it, so Ellie decided to get to the meaty stuff. 

“I see.” She studied the papers in front of her, making another note – ‘frozen peas’ – and then looked back up. “Your husband – does he ever stray?”

“Nope. He knows better,” Jenna answered confidently. “He’ll never get anything better than me.”

“Wow, that sounds very certain,” Ellie said, eyebrows raised. 

“Yeah, well. I’m just really good and he knows it.” Good. As long as Jenna was being smug and confident, Ellie might be able to surprise her yet. 

With a big, kind smile, she held out two sheets of paper with just one line on either of it. “So, if you know your husband so well, I’m sure you’re aware of his accounts on the – uh, what’s it called… ‘fetishengine.com’ and ‘boundforum.net’ websites, yes?” 

Jenna shifted. Fish – meet hook. “Yeah? It’s not a crime. We both have an account. Nice to get some hints at what to try next, you know?” She tried for bravado and crudeness, but it fell flat. 

“Really? And would those accounts be under the names of ‘Mayfly’ and ‘Naiad’, respectively?” Silence. “Mrs Mayford?”

“Yeah, yes. Those are our user-names. Why?” Jenna started biting on her thumbnail. “Isn’t that private? Aren’t there laws against this?” Ellie ignored her question.

“Did you ever have a conversation with a person named ‘Bernadette Woodward’?” 

“Uh… yeah? Might have? It’s a big forum.”

“This would be someone you and your husband agreed to meet in person.”

“Really?” Jenna pretended to think. “I can’t remember.”

“Oh – well, of course it’s entirely possible your husband agreed to the meeting alone. Do you think that would be possible?”

She shrugged. 

“Even when you said he would never cheat on you?” 

“Well – you would know about never knowing a person completely, right?” Jenna snapped, but she was clearly rattled. 

“Thing is, we do have the private messages that your husband had with ‘Bernadette Woodward’.” Ellie handed over a print-out of the screenshots. “Does this look familiar?”

Shifting in her seat, Jenna only glanced at the pages. “No, never seen them.” 

“Really? Never? It quite openly mentions you here, see?” Ellie pointed to a particular shot. “And at one point ‘Mayfly’ – your husband – and Bernadette exchanged phone-numbers and agreed on a date to meet.”

“So? What if? We do that, sometimes. Meet with people who’re open to a threesome with some rope-play. It’s all consensual, everyone gets off and that’s all that matters, right?”

Ellie took a deep breath. “Of course, if everything is consensual… Except that the person you or your husband were meeting disappeared on the same date the meeting had been scheduled. Do you wonder how we know this and how we came to the transcripts of the chat and screen-shots, Mrs Mayford?”

Jenna sniffed. “I think I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“Oh? So you do know who ‘Bernadette Woodward’ is? Maybe you would like to have a look at the picture of Phyllis Simons again?” Ellie slid it over the table but Jenna just stared ahead, silent and sullen. 

“Do I get to speak with my lawyer?”

Ellie smiled and leaned back. “Of course. Someone will come to get you to a phone. We’ll just wait a little until they’re here.” 

She packed her things, slowly and deliberately, while Orrin stopped the tape after stating the end of the interview. Outside, behind the closed door, Ellie couldn’t help but grin boldly at Orrin, who held up his hand so she could slap it. It wasn’t quite a celebration yet, but she gave it a little tap. 

When they walked into CID, Hardy was leaning against the door to the observation-room. “Find her babysitter,” he said to Orrin and added “and check the hotels she named if they’d had a booking there on the fourth or third. Harford has two more hotels from Mayford, so check these, too.” He handed over a piece of paper with names scribbled on. “Well done,” he said to Miller and damn him but that shitty little offhanded praise made her insides glow in satisfaction. 

She knew she’d done good. She didn’t need his approval! She wasn’t his bloody puppy!

Slightly annoyed, not quite sure if at herself or at him, Ellie stomped into the kitchen and banged about to make some coffee. Orrin had gone off to his tasks, sulking, though what else would he expect, that was his bloody job! 

“How long can we hold them?” she asked when she felt Hardy at her back. “I don’t want to let her go just yet; she knows definitely more than what she’s trying to sell us.”

Hardy looked at his wrist, which was currently watch-less and still looking battered and scowled before taking out his phone. “Lots of time. We have twenty-four hours and it’s not even been three. Let’s see if Brian has something more.”

“How did Katie do?” Ellie asked on the way to his office, carrying her coffee in both hands because it seemed to be a lifeline. The interview in the stuffy room with the tiny brick-windows and its lingering memories of Joe in a white paper body-suit had exhausted her more than she’d thought.

“Good. Mayford is being slimy and slippery, but she kept her cool so far and let him run his mouth. Really good work.”

“Hope you’ll tell her,” Ellie teased and he frowned as if that was a completely daft idea. She sighed. “Of course you won’t. So – any leads?”

“Babysitter with the name of Charlene. Nothing more, an off-hand comment from Mayford. He basically said the same as his wife, just with more innuendo and suggestions.” He shuddered. “Slimy bastard.”

He used his landline to call SOCO and put it on speaker when Brian answered. _”What? We’re working down here!”_

“Good morning, Brian,” Hardy said, giving her a toothy smirk over the desk. Ellie hid her snicker with her mug. “Is there anything more you can tell us, because we have both Aaron and Jenna Mayford here and we’d like for them to stay.”

She could hear Brian groan, but it was less annoyance at her boss than frustration. _”We’re still processing the car. It’s very damp, as you can imagine, and there’s a lot in it that could have prints but hasn’t. Waste of time so far.” There was some rustling. “Key in the ignition, no prints other than your own. Whoever had it probably used gloves. We’re processing the fibres from the boot, referencing them to your clothes which might get some results, I guess…”_

“Yes, yes,” Hardy said, impatient. “It’s my car, of course there’s a lot of my stuff in there. What we need is something from Mayford!”

_”What do you want? We’re not bloody Harry Potter down here! This is science – we can only give you what’s here, not what’s not here. No fag-ends with DNA, no fingerprints, no nothing. Sorry to be such a disappointment, but that’s how it is.”_

Hardy looked ready to burn down the phone with his eyes, so Ellie hastened to make nice. “Thank you, Brian. We know you’re all doing the best you can. Just… give us a call when you get anything.”

Slightly mollified, Brian accepted her apology that wasn’t really one. _”Course I will, Ell. I’ve got to get back to work.”_ He hung up and Hardy scowled at the phone as if the thing was responsible for his shitty mood. At least he wasn’t glaring at her.

“So – we continue to see where the interviews will get us? You think Jenkinson might give us a search-warrant yet for their house?”

Hardy sighed. “No. So far, they’re only witnesses in Phyllis disappearance and they’ll lawyer up and stop saying anything.”

“Has Mayford asked for a solicitor yet?” 

He shook his head. “He’s still smug enough to think he can outwit Harford. I don’t know what kind of prick one has to be to think one’s smarter than a whole station of police-officers.” He shifted in his seat and stared at the blank screen of his computer, tapping the desk with his pen in a sharp rhythm. 

Ellie looked at the files on his table, too tired to open them but something was nagging at her. “Where are her clothes?” she frowned.

“Hm?”

“Phyllis’s clothes. We expected them to be with your car, but they aren’t. Where would they be?”

Hardy pursed his lips. “They could have burned them, thrown them away. Given them to a second hand store, maybe?” He dialled a number and ordered the person at the other end to check second-hand-stores or any place that took used clothes for a recent anonymous gift, but Ellie could see his heart wasn’t in it.

“I suppose so. What else would help us get somewhere?”

“A recent purchase of Sharpie-boxes? Phyllis’s laptop in their possession? A signed confession? Any number of things, really, but all we bloody have right now is bollocks and bullshit.” He rubbed his eyes, hard. “Where did they even get the permanent markers? Who drives around with enough of them to draw all that crap on me?”

“Good question. I-“ Before she could finish the sentence, Hardy’s phone rang. 

“Hm? Oh, it’s you. Yes… yes, yeah?” His eyes shot wide open. “Oh, really? Now that’s fascinating, isn’t it? It… oh, not recent? Well… still, might be helpful, thanks. Yes, send it over, that’s a good boy,” he grinned and Ellie could hear the laughter from the other end of the line. “Ta, I owe you. Yes, yes. I know.” 

With a sharp smile, Hardy hit a few keys on the keyboard and started to print something out. 

“I think we have a very nice little surprise for either you or Harford.” He held out the page and Ellie read and felt her eyebrows hit her hairline. 

“Wow, Sir, does that give us enough for a search through their house? It must, right?” 

On the pages was a transcript of one of Mayford’s private message feeds with another user, named ‘Apusscyatnamedbob’. They openly discussed the use of drugs for themselves and bed-partners and which calmed them down and which put them to sleep and which would enhance performance and orgasm. 

After several pages of marijuana and cocaine and similar, ‘ordinary’ drugs, ‘Apussycatnamedbob’ described how he’d tried a mixture of chloral hydrate, Flunitrazepam and jimpson weed and it had given his partner a complete blackout. ‘Apussycatnamedbob’ had advised against testing it, but Mayford had wheedled a link for ordering chloral hydrate with the ID of a fake veterinary clinic. 

“This is basically a recipe for date-rape drugs!” Ellie said, stunned at the audacity of the two users. “Am I reading this right?”

Grimly, Hardy nodded. “Let’s go talk to Elaine.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's Twosday again! Yay!

“Has anything of this turned up in your blood-test?” Elaine asked, a worried frown on her face. Hardy shook his head.

“The lab has severe backlog for blood-tests. It’s not done yet, probably takes until next week. Should we send those over to see if they can find traces of those better than testing just randomly?”

“You might as well,” Elaine considered and handed the page back to him. “This transcript – legally obtained?”

He nodded decisively. “With the connection between Mayford and Simons due to her own research – yes. His IP-address would be open game. We’re currently checking his Private Messaging features for other contacts he might have persuaded for a little intimacy.” 

Miller sat next to him, bit her lips and fidgeted. “Ma’am, at the very least, this highly suggests that whatever else he’s done, he at the very least considered to use those drugs on one of his partners. Maybe his wife, but that’s not certain. Jenna Mayford already stated that they sometimes pick up others for sex. If they used this stuff…”

“I’m well aware, Ellie.” Elaine sat back and tapped her lip with her pen. “It’s enough for a search-warrant, I agree. I’ll get it for you. Alec – you can’t be on site; I hope I don’t have to tell you that.”

He shook his head. “No, of course not.” It was very much not what he wanted, but for a watertight case they needed watertight evidence. If his presence would jeopardise that, he’d have to stay away. Bitter as it was.

They left Elaine’s office and Miller prepared to leave for Mayford’s house. Harford would join her while they let the Mayfords stew some more. Hardy arranged for Jeremy Mayford to be with his mother so nobody could accuse them of withholding a child and then he sat behind his desk and pulled up the research that had been on Phyllis’s USB-device.

O o o o O O o o o O

Two hours later, Miller still wasn’t back. Hardy debated calling her but ultimately decided against it. She’d be busy, and if she hadn’t called, it stood to reason that she hadn’t found anything useful thus far. Hagarth wasn’t yet done with getting the requested hotel-statements and they hadn’t found the babysitter named Charlene, though DS Stevenson had at least gotten to the person who could shed some light. Paperwork was dreary and uninspiring and completely unable to hold his attention, and after pacing CIDs floor more than twice already and making his detectives so nervous that even he noticed, Hardy growled and grabbed his jacket.

“Out, lunch,” he snapped to nobody in particular and headed down to the water to see if fresh air could get his head back into gear. The sky was blue and dotted with tufty clouds, and Hardy took off his shoes once more to wade through the cold sand. As distractions went, it was rather shitty. With the town behind him, he sat down on a dry spot and stared at the sea, not really seeing anything but using the blue-grey waves as a canvas to order his thoughts which were still just tumbling around like balls in a pinball-machine. 

For a while, he tried to focus on the Mayfords but whenever he tried to picture the two of them knocking him out, his brain shied away from any deeper thoughts on the matter. Every time he forced it, everything came to a screeching halt at the image of Mayford and his wife kneeling over him and meticulously writing on his skin and he forced the images back down lest the bile he could feel would rise to where he couldn’t contain it anymore.

What would have to go on in anyone’s mind to come up with that? Like Miller had said – why not just tie him to a tree, that would have been plenty distracting. 

A sudden, sharp ring jolted him out of his musings and he grabbed his phone, glad for any distraction. “Miller?”

She didn’t waste time with her usual pleasantries. _“Can you check at the ‘Ballard’ in West Milton if the Mayfords or Phyllis had been there on the fourth? I’ll be on my way back; they had the name of the pub scrabbled into their calendar. It’s just a short drive. I promise, once you get back, Sir, we’ll nail those wankers to the wall.”_ He could hear her vicious snarl and imagined Miller’s face set in a satisfied frown. 

“Have you got them?”

_“I do! Fuck yes, have I got them!”_

Hardy was already up, walking back towards the station to get a car signed out. “Tell me?” 

_“This is too good to tell you on the phone. Just this much – I want you present in the interview-room, because this is solid gold and if neither of those two will crack, I’ll eat my left shoe.”_

He smiled and it seemed that finally, some perpetual cloud that he hadn’t even noticed was shifting, allowing a little bit of light inside. 

Just as he’d hung up, the phone rang again. “What?”

_”And here I was hoping your new side would be permanent. Ellie’s not with you, I gather?”_

“Brian, if all you’re doing is moaning about my manners…”

_”Oh, you wouldn’t be so brash if you knew what I have. Remember the print on your watch?”_

“No, I forgot,” he growled sarcastically. “What about it?”

_”Your station sent a new set of prints down here for comparison. It’s a match. Jenna Mayford definitely touched your watch, Sir, and left a wonderful, clear print.”_

“Oh, this is good.” He grinned out at the sea. “So good. Outstanding, even.” 

Brian grunted something sarcastic and with a few choice words, he hung up. He might have called him ‘shitface’ again, but with the mood Hardy was in right now, he couldn’t have cared less. 

He took DS Hagarth with him to the ‘Ballard’ and showed the owner and the bartender the pictures of Aaron and Jenna Mayford and Phyllis Simons and got confirmation that they’d been at the pub. 

“Must have been over a week ago, but I remember them. The two girls were really pretty and I wondered what they had to do with that weird knobby bloke they had with them. Don’t know when they left, but they must’ve drunk a lot. Blondie here was pretty pissed when they walked out.”

Hardy gave a look towards Hagarth, but he was writing in his notebook and didn’t react. “Do you have CCTV outside at the carpark?” he asked, but they didn’t. Hardy took down the details of the owner and the bartender and anyone else on staff and they made their way back to Broadchurch.

While this was good, and along with the print on his watch things were already looking very promising, Hardy couldn’t wait to hear what Miller had that got her so excited.


	21. Chapter 21

“Jenna first or slimy Aaron?” Ellie was impatient to get into the interrogation-room and shifted against the desk she was leaning on. She’d rushed back, leaving Katie with the SOCO-team in Mayford’s house to search for more interesting evidence. She was instructed to report back as soon as anything else was found and Katie had pouted a little, but sifting through the Mayfords’ house was exciting enough for her to get over it soon. 

Ellie had nearly bumped into Hardy and Orrin, back from West Milton with confirmation of Mayford and Simons meeting at the pub, and she’d felt more confidence than even finding the missing piece of evidence against Lee Ashworth and Ricky Gillespie had given her. 

It was like a rush. If this was what Hardy felt like with a big case, it was no wonder he dug himself so deep every time, even when it didn’t hit as close as murdered children. 

Now, he sat behind her desk on her chair, swivelling it impatiently. She would have chased him away if she’d been able to sit still herself with all that adrenaline running through her system. Ellie wanted to pounce on the Mayfords, and preferably right now. If she were a cat, her tail would be swishing back and forth like a windshield-wiper in an April-downpour.

“As much as I’d love to wipe the smug, slimy look from Mayford’s face, I think Jenna is more likely to give us a confession,” he finally said after blowing out his cheeks three times in indecision. “We could confront Aaron with the drugs first, though, let him think it’s all we have and see what he has to say?”

He was giving her the choice, Ellie realized. While she would have been fine for him to make the final decision, he left it up to her as the lead detective. It felt more validating than anything had so far. More even, she realized with a start, than Jenkinson praising her skills. 

Damn him. Knob.

“I like that idea.” With a decisive nod, she stood straight and swiped over her suit. “I’ll do that right away. You’re coming?”

Hardy smacked his lips. “No. No, I think not quite yet. He’s bound to know where we’re going with it anyway, but he can’t be sure we have enough to tie him down,” he winced, just a lightning-quick twitch at the side of his mouth but Ellie had seen it “with Phyllis death.”

The coroner had finally sent the results from the autopsy. Sadly, nothing had been found that would lead to a cause of death. No broken bones, no ante-mortem marks on her body, nothing to indicate sexual violence or even non-violent sexual activity, no traces of poison or anything that could have possibly been left after this long in the forest. While it didn’t help them at all, Ellie felt a sickening relief about it, too. At least there was the high chance that Phyllis’s last moments hadn’t been violent or brutal. 

“Good. Orrin?” 

Hardy followed them to the interrogation-room that held Mayford but stepped back from the door once she and Orrin entered. He would probably go and watch the proceedings on the monitor, too curious to just wait outside. 

“Mr Mayford,” Ellie greeted the man in front of her. He looked nearly the same as he’d done during the Winterman-case, only his beard had gotten a bit longer and fuller. He wore an identically smug expression, the one that truly needed to be wiped off his face. 

“Oh, another one of you. Don’t you have male police in this station?” He leaned back in his chair, presenting his protruding belly like it was something to be proud of. “No offence,” he added towards Orrin, who remained as stoic as usual. 

“When you talked to DC Harford earlier…” he smirked at the mention of Katie and wriggled his brows. Ellie felt the strong desire to shave them off his face with a blunt razor. “You stated that you and your wife sometimes pick up other people for sex. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And you said it’s all consensual, correct?”

“Yes.” He shifted.

“Mr Mayford, do you have an account on one of these websites?” She handed over the papers with the names and Mayford glanced at them, mostly bored but with maybe a hint of apprehension. 

“If you are showing them to me, you know the answer to it.”

“For the tape?”

“Yes.”

“And do you know a user named ‘Apussycatnamedbob’, all one word?”

A nervous little twitch. “I… don’t recall. Possibly.”

“Well, to jog your memory – about seven months ago, you had a long conversation via private messaging with him. The subject was very interesting, considering you told us that you and your wife are very conscious about free and willing consent with your sexual acquaintances. At least recently,” she added before she could stop herself delivering the barb.

Mayford blinked and bit his lip but it was just a quick quirk. He was stoic and provocative not even a second later.

Ellie slid the pages with the PM-conversation over to him. “This is it, in case you need something to refresh your recollection.” She smiled pleasantly. 

Wetting his mouth with his tongue, Mayford carefully leaned forward to look at the evidence presented. “So?”

“What concerns us is the specific interest you show towards the combination of drugs that led to Pussycat-Bob’s partner’s complete blackout. Considering your prior conviction, Mr Mayford, this doesn’t exactly paint you as very honest. Or trustworthy company.”

He leaned back again, drawing his smug persona over his face like a curtain in front of a window. “Once more – so? I was concerned about this. Asked him to clarify so I could report it to the police if I had suspicion that he would use those things on unwilling participants.”

“Oh?” Ellie raised her eyebrow. “That’s very considerate, I have to say. So – you reported Mr Pussycat Bob then?”

Mayford sniffed. “No, I didn’t. As you well know, _Detective_. But I might have done, if something had come up. Never did, so…” He shrugged. 

Ellie leaned back now, blinking at Mayford for a few seconds without saying anything. He didn’t twitch, didn’t fidget, just sported a bored, superior expression. When he started studying his fingernails, she nodded. “Very well, then. If that’s your statement on this, I’ll leave you alone to contemplate.” Once more, she found a pleasant-looking smile to give him and gathered her things to leave. “We’ll continue this later. If you like, someone will bring you something to eat and drink.”

She exited the room and once the door fell shut behind her and Orrin, she leaned against the wall. “Right,” she murmured, “on to the next one.” 

“You need me for that?” Orrin asked, but Ellie shook her head. 

“No. Boss will be sitting in.” She smiled at Orrin shifting uncomfortably. Apparently, he was still unsure what exactly Hardy had heard this morning. God… had it only been this morning?

Just as she pondered if it would be okay for her to have a bite, Hardy turned the corner, causing Orrin to suddenly find something very interesting in the files he was carrying and scurry off along the hallway. “Miller?” 

“Yepp, all set.” She straightened. “You okay?” It was more a reflex than true concern, though she would admit that being concerned for him had developed into a reflex during this investigation. He looked normal, so far, but now and then she caught little inconsistencies with his usual behaviour and that in her book was cause for slight worry. 

Not fussing, but concern. It wasn’t fussing if it was based on facts. 

“Sure.” After two or three seconds where none of them moved, he looked over at Miller. “You?”

“Me? Oh, I’m fine. I just mean – can’t be easy, watching and reading all this and knowing it’s happened to you. Must be weird.” 

He sniffed. “Bit weird, yah.”

“But you’re fine?”

“Fantastic.”

“Oh, now that’s reassuring. I need you to be absolutely one-hundred percent certain that you can do this.”

Hardy rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed. “I’ve done this before,” he tried but Ellie was having none of it.

“With all due respect, Sir, no – you haven’t. Not like this, not when it’s this goddamn personal.”

With closed eyes, Hardy took a deep breath. “I am one-hundred percent certain that I can sit in that interview-room with Jenna Mayford and watch you tear her walls and lies down so you can get to the truth. And while I… appreciate your thoroughness, with all _due respect_ you have so far not been privy to what kinds of personal I can deal with.” 

There was a warning on his face, a clear ‘do not fight me on this; you will lose’ behind his dark eyes. Thinking back to the awkward, failed first meeting with his ex-wife, Ellie remembered the throw-away mention of not having a choice but to leave South Mercier because there had been nobody who stood up for him. 

If he’d been alone all through that shit-fest the press had created and had endured until he understood that there was nothing left of his marriage and that his heart was failing him, he was probably right in that he had a lot of experience dealing with personal. 

“Sorry,” she said, and this time she meant it. “Are we ready, then?”

Hardy let out a breath and nodded. “Yes, let’s go.”

O o o o O O o o o O

While he’d not been lying to Miller about his capabilities for stoic suffering – Tess’s words, but she wasn’t wrong – sitting silently by while Miller did the job was a lot more excruciating than watching the feed of a camera.

When he’d stepped inside, keeping a step behind Miller on purpose so there would be a bit of a gap between them, he’d sharply watched Jenna’s reaction. 

She’d flinched visibly at his sight, and it pleased him because it exposed a weakness, insecurities in her fortress of lies and Miller, if he knew her at all, would tear it down relentlessly. 

They had everything they needed to crack her, and maybe Jenna knew it now when she’d been hoping to get out of this before. 

“Hello Mrs Mayford,” Miller said, taking her seat. She continued with the spiel for the tape and then smiled her beaming, friendly, compassionate smile that she could nowadays wield like Yannik Borel could wield his rapier. Jenna’s solicitor sat next to her, silent and observant. “Let’s continue, shall we?”

“Don’t have a choice, do I?” 

Miller didn’t answer, just put her notes on the table. “Mrs Mayford, where were you on the evening of the fourth of March?” 

“I don’t know,” Jenna answered quickly. “I mean… probably home?”

“Are you certain?”

“No. That’s why I said ‘probably’. What day was that?”

Miller pretended to look it up. “Wednesday”. 

“Well, then no, I was having Pilates.”

“Oh, is that a weekly course? Where do you go?” She sounded like she would want nothing more than to go there herself.

“Fit for Fun, West Milton. And yeah, I go every week.”

“How long do the lessons last?” 

“Uh, usually ‘till seven, but sometimes we run late. So maybe seven, eight?”

“And did you run late on the fourth?”

“Can’t remember.”

“Hm.” Miller looked back down at her notes. Hardy was starting to enjoy this immensely. “Wasn’t that long ago, but anyway. Did you go out later that day? Maybe to a pub?”

Jenna shifted slightly, bit her lips and shot a quick glance sideways at her lawyer. “Don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so, or you know you didn’t?”

“Well, then – I didn’t.” 

“Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”

“Why’s that so important?” Jenna groaned, pretending to be annoyed but clearly severely rattled. “No, not certain. But I’m not much of a pub-goer, you know? Having a baby is a bit limiting. Maybe I did, but I don’t remember.” She suddenly sat up, as if she’d found a good reason for lying. “You have children, right? You know how hard it is to remember stuff day to day.”

Miller smiled, kindly. “Yes, I do. But the reason I ask: on your calendar in your kitchen we found the fourth marked with the name of a pub in West Milton, the ‘Ballard’. Maybe you remember more now?”

Quickly, too quickly, Jenna Mayford shook her head. 

“For the tape?”

“No. No, never went there.”

“Oh. Well, in that case maybe you can help us.” Miller held out her hand towards Hardy, and he slid the three pictures they’d showed to the pub-owner over to her. “The man who owns the ‘Ballard’, Rory Gibson, he stated that on the evening of March the fourth, he served you and your husband and another woman at his establishment.”

Jenna shifted backwards on her seat. “He must have been mistaken.”

“He identified you. And so did his bartender.”

“Wasn’t me.”

Miller’s eyebrows shot up. “Wasn’t you? So … your husband was out at the pub, alone, meeting two women, one of them looking very much like you, even though you swore earlier that he never strayed and wouldn’t cheat on you?”

“Yeah, well,” Jenna sniffed, trying for smug and confident but missing by miles, “just shows how we can never really know a person, right? As you would know.” Her parting shot missed Miller completely but Hardy succumbed to the urge to scratch his chin. Otherwise, he remained silent, but his movement had Jenna remembering his presence, apparently, and she shot him a swift look that she quickly averted again. Miller noticed but didn’t react further than a twitch of her eyebrow. 

“Right, of course we never do.” She sat up and looked straight at Jenna, her usually pleasant smile sharp like a knife. “Do you drink milk?”

Startled, Jenna blinked. “Uh – what?”

“Just a simple question, really. Do you drink milk?”

“Ahm. Yes?”

“So there would be a lot of milk in your house, I gather? With a small child and two adults…”

“Not really.” Jenna was unsure where this was going, that much was obvious, but she answered. “Jeremy and Aaron are lactose-intolerant. I’m the only one who drinks it. Mostly for coffee, though.”

“Ah. So when did you last buy milk?”

“What? I… I don’t know? A week ago, maybe?” 

Miller smiled, so bloody friendly and innocent that Hardy wanted to hug her just for being such a great interrogator. “It’s really amazing, with the new filter-techniques, right? We can buy milk that keeps fresh two, three weeks even. I remember times when it would spoil within seven days, maybe even earlier. What kind of milk do you buy? Skimmed? Semi?”

“Just what’s cheapest, usually. Where’s this going?” Jenna looked across towards her lawyer again, then back to Miller and swiftly at him. Nobody moved. “Usually semi or whole fat. Don’t like the white water-stuff.”

“I so relate. That 1%-stuff is truly horrible. So – if there’s only one of you drinking milk, I guess it would be quite a long time until you finished two pints, right? You said you last bought milk maybe a week ago, is that right?”

“Well – maybe? I don’t remember! Told you, lots to do with being a mum and such. Sometimes Aaron goes shopping, too.”

“Right. Of course, and you wouldn’t know then. Don’t you think it would make sense to only buy one pint or a litre if you are the only one drinking it?”

“Yeah? But sometimes the bigger sizes are cheaper in total, and as you said – they keep fresh for a long time. Seriously – are you asking me for shopping advice here?” She tried to bluster, but Hardy noticed little beads of sweat developing at her hairline. Jenna clearly knew the direction this was going but was still trying to keep afloat. 

Miller smiled a little bit, slightly patronizing and wholly terrifying, if you knew her at all. “No. No, not shopping advice.” Her voice dropped and octave and she lost her smile. “I just want to ask you what you think we found on the two-pint size bottle of milk that was in your fridge when we tested it for fingerprints.”

Jenna froze. She shot a very quick look towards Hardy and then back to Miller, then back to her solicitor and all around the room. Like a frightened rabbit, her eyes were searching for an exit, for a way out of this situation. There was none. And she knew it. “You… you tested my fridge-content for prints?” Her voice was low, much lower than it had been all through the day. 

“Yes,” Miller said, kind again and a little pitying. “We did. We have this quick-scan-thing from our Scene of Crime Officers, where we can cross-check known prints swiftly so we know which ones we need to pay attention to. Interesting, when you suddenly find a print from someone completely unexpected in the fridge of someone else, don’t you think? Can you guess whose prints we found on the milk?”

A sniff. “I…” Jenna looked down, then up again at Hardy, meeting his gaze for the first time until she looked away again. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Whose?” Silence. “Mrs Mayford, whose prints were on the milk?”

“His,” she whispered, pointing to Hardy after a quick glance. “Right?”

“Him? The man who’s sitting beside me?” A nod. “DI Hardy?” 

Another sniff. Tears started to well in her eyes and she wiped them away quickly. “Yeah.” 

“For the tape – Mrs Mayford indicated Detective Inspector Hardy.” Miller looked over towards him for the first time since entering the room. It was quick and assessing and whatever she saw, she seemed pleased. Well, fantastic to know he was behaving to her liking. “Mrs Mayford, can you tell us why we found DI Hardy’s prints on your milk.” Silence, except for the increasing sniffs. “Mrs Mayford? Jenna?”

“It was just an accident,” she suddenly said, low and throaty and slightly pitiful. “Just a stupid, stupid accident.”

“What was. Jenna? What was an accident?” 

“The journalist.” Jenna said and wiped her nose. “I recognized her when we met. Didn’t think anything first but then I remembered. I’ve got time, read a lot of papers. Online. And… well.”

Miller leaned back but not so far as to touch the backrest of the chair. She was just creating distance so Jenna Mayford would feel less pressured, would feel free to answer at her pace. And now that the floodgate was opened, the truth just tumbled out.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm, maybe I need a bit of warning for adult situations. No more than in Series 2, though, so 'teen' is still valid. 
> 
> I also realized that yesterday was NOT Tuesday! Oh dear... so you'll only get a small chapter today.

_“I swear, it’s her!” Jenna shook Aaron’s arm. “I’m not imagining it. Look, wait… I’ve got proof.”_

_The woman they were meeting wasn’t classically beautiful but very attractive in her own way, and the two of them had been blissfully happy with their possible new bed-mate until something about her had jogged Jenna’s memory. A flip of her head, maybe, or something that just caused her to think beyond sex. With a few keywords, she found the link to the article she remembered and clicked on the picture. The face that popped up was absolutely the woman who’d just left for the toilet. “See? It’s her!”_

_“Fucking hell…” Aaron stared at the phone, then back up at the door to the loo. “She even said her name was Woodward…. Damn, ballsy choice of alias,” he grouched but maybe not. It might have worked out if not for lucky coincidence and that award-ceremony Jenna had read about._

_“What do we do? Aaron!”_

_“I don’t know, let me think…”_

_“We could just leave?” she suggested but Aaron was already shaking his head. “Why not?”_

_“The stuff she asked – remember? About the safety and consent and such? There’s no way she’s not aware of my conviction, just no way!”_

_“So what? Aaron!” He was searching his pockets until he found the small tin which held their fun-powder. Jenna loved the stuff. It was such a kick to wake up with pleasant aching all over and no memory, and then be told what had happened. Even better was when they watched the tape later. He always taped it so she could enjoy it afterwards. “What do you want with that?”_

_“It’ll knock her out. She won’t remember and we just leave her at her trailer and she wakes up and forgets she ever met us. Easy. Nothing to worry about.”_

_Jenna bit her lips. “But… what if she does remember?” Aaron was already trickling two pinches of the whitish powder into the journalist’s glass. “Aaron!”_

_“She won’t. You never do, right?” She shook her head. It was true, she never remembered anything. “It’s not more than I’d give you, sweetheart. Same amount, see?”_

“So, your husband carries this powder with him? What is it?”

“Uhm, he got the mixture online, through one of the forums. It’s really good and safe and we never use it on anyone, I swear! I’ve used it … I don’t know, ten, maybe fifteen times? Nothing ever happened to me.”

Ellie scratched her nose, tempted to understand this woman a little better. Finally, she asked. “But… how can this be good for your sex-life if you don’t remember?”

“Well. I obviously don’t know during. But after. I mean… he doesn’t look like much, but Aaron’s _so_ good in bed. Magician, really. And when we watch the film he makes of us, me being all pliant and wilful, I … he goes down on me and it’s really like fireworks. Best thing ever.” 

She wasn’t smug anymore, not trying to coax a reaction from her or Hardy or anyone else in the room. She was stating facts as she perceived them and even though Ellie couldn’t possibly understand her reasons, she believed her in that Jenna truly didn’t mind the use of the drugs. That it squigged Ellie, for various reasons, least of all the participation of Aaron Mayford was not relevant here.

“Okay. Go on.”

_The drugs worked quickly, and soon the journalist– Phyllis, she remembered, her name was Phyllis – started to slur her words and blink incessantly. Aaron overdid it a little with his joviality and stating loudly that she was getting sloshed and the two of them slung Phyllis’s arms around their shoulders and helped her out of the pub and into her car. She was pliant and very groggy and getting her onto the passenger-seat was a bit of a bother._

_“You drive her,” Aaron said after going through Phyllis’s purse. “These keys are from the Holiday Park so we’ll just bring her there and leave her in bed and she won’t remember a thing tomorrow. Don’t worry, darling.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, “I’ll be right behind you.”_

_Jenna moved the seat of Phyllis’s rental so she could sit comfortably, checked the mirrors and started the motor. The car was great, so much roomier and more comfortable than their little Golf. If they only had more money, but with Aaron’s low-key job and her being a full-time mum, they barely got by paying rent. Still, something like this would be fantastic for her and Jeremy when they went out to go shopping or to the beach. Maybe if her photography would turn out be good enough to earn money…_

_She switched on the radio and listened to the music, and it wasn’t until she was nearly at the junction where she should turn off that she noticed the smell. Sniffing, she soon realized that Phyllis had wet herself._

_“Aw, hell – no. Aw no, darling, so sorry about this,” she said, switching off the radio. “Sorry, you’ll have to wake up to a bit of a surprise tomorrow.” But now that the music was off, something seemed wrong. Jenna looked over. “Phyllis?”_

_Of course she didn’t move, but… she didn’t move_ at all _! “Phyllis!” Jenna screeched, nearly driving off the road. Quickly, she turned into a car-park and stopped, scrambling out and over to check Phyllis for breath and pulse but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. “No. No no no no no. No, Phyllis!”_

_Frantic, she tried to get her out of the seatbelt but it wouldn’t unbuckle and the more it resisted, the more frantic Jenna got. “No, no, please, that can’t be happening, no!”_

_By the time she got the belt undone and Phyllis lifted – more like slumped – out of the car, Aaron had driven into the carpark and was rushing over to her. “What are you doing? Jenna!”_

_“She’s dead!” Jenna cried. “I don’t know what happened, she just died! No pulse, no breath and she even peed her panties – Aaron! Aaron… we killed her.” She was sobbing, trying once more for a pulse but there was nothing and Phyllis’s flesh was already growing cold. “Aaron…”_

_He stared at the body, pale and blinking like an owl. “Oh god, no…” Agitated himself, he pulled at his hair and started pacing. “If anyone finds out… I’m still on parole. My conviction...”_

_Aaron shook himself awake and sank to his knees beside Jenna. He checked for a pulse but he wasn’t able to find anything, either. “She’s gone,” he said, voice scared and tiny. “Oh my god, Jenna, she’s dead! They’ll never believe it was an accident! The police already hate me… no chance.”_

_A terrible thought struck Jenna suddenly, a thought so chilling she couldn’t even finish it completely. “Aaron. What… what about Jeremy?”_

_She knew she was crying and Aaron was close to tears himself. More as an afterthought, he took her in his arms and tried to console her, but it didn’t matter. The world, her world, was falling apart bit by bit, and there was nothing anyone could do._


	23. Chapter 23

The air in the small room was stuffy and smelled of sweat and desperation when Hardy re-entered. Jenna Mayford had sobbed herself hoarse and Miller had called for a pause and sent him out to get something to drink. Now, he put the glass in front of her, filled it with water from the bottle and put the plastic-bottle next to Jenna, who took a long drink and wiped her mouth and eyes, sniffing loudly. She accepted the packet of tissues and blew her nose.

“Ta,” she said, and if he wanted to, he could probably read a bit of remorse in her eyes. 

He didn’t want to and just took his seat after restarting the tape and reciting the time and people present. 

It was six-thirty-five and while he’d been outside, he’d sent a quick text to Daisy and Tom after Miller had given him the number, telling both that they would be late home tonight. Daisy had sent him a picture of a delicious-looking pasta-casserole but his stomach was in knots and the sight just left him feeling slightly sick. 

“Why didn’t you call the police when you realized Phyllis was dead?” Miller continued the interview, “If it was an accident…”

Jenna snorted. “As if anyone would have believed it. You would have roasted Aaron on an open fire, and even if you had believed us, you know full-well how people in this town never let you forget your sins. If the world found out – and it would, she was a fucking journalist and not some nobody no-one would care about – we would never have been left alone. What you went through after the trial of your husband would have been a piece of cake in comparison,” she snarled, but soon all the fire left her again. 

She wasn’t completely wrong, Hardy thought. If you’d reached a certain amount of notoriety or fame, shit followed you throughout your life. Case in point – he and Sandbrook and DI Jacobs, or Miller and her murdering ex-husband. Maybe Tom, at least, would one day be able to shed the burden of being Joe Miller’s son and the ‘friend of the dead boy’. He was young, starting out on the world in a few years’ time and he would get to know new people who’d never heard of him or his parents or Danny Latimer. In Broadchurch, though, those labels would be very hard to come off. 

“I would have lost my son,” Jenna said and grimaced unhappily. “Well – seems like I will now, anyway.” She sniffed and more tears rolled down her face. “At the time, it seemed worth the risk.”

_”What do we do? Aaron, what do we do! I can’t lose Jeremy, he’s the best of me, I… Aaron, what do we do?”_

_“I… Okay, I’ve got an idea. So far, nobody knows we met her. Nobody would connect us to her, there’s no reason anyone would know. We’ll … we leave her somewhere where she won’t be found, empty her trailer, get rid of her things, give back the car… she vanishes and nobody will know. She’s a famous journalist – anything could have happened to her! When she’s found, anyone who’d seen us together wouldn’t remember us. We’re not known much around here… We can do this. Right? Jenna, darling, we can do this. We just keep our head and all will turn out fine. Trust me.”_

_She chewed on her lip while she avoided to look at Phyllis. She was slack and completely unmoving, of course she was, but it was so unnerving to see it. Jenna had never seen a dead person before in her life. Not even a dead animal – well. Apart from birds and beetles and stuff._

_“Okay. Yeah.” She looked around at the carpark. “Not here, obviously…” Swallowing, she kicked her brain into gear. “I know two places we could put her. Wait, get the map. I’ll show you.”_

_Aaron reached into the Golf and pulled out a map and Jenna looked for the two places she’d found when she’d scouted for good photography-locations. “Here’s one, an old quarry-lake. It’s a bit far off, though, so maybe the other is better. That’s here – there’s a small road and a bit of a scramble through the forest. But it should be fine, nobody ever goes there. It’s overgrown and there’s a ditch that would be perfect.”_

_They decided on the forest and left the rental at the car-park to pick it up later. Carefully, they deposited Phyllis on the backseat of the Golf and drove off towards the little forest, both jittery and reluctant to speak as if the corpse from behind them would listen and judge._

_Jenna kept thinking about Jeremy at home, and how much she wanted to hold him right now and sing a song for him so she could fall asleep with his cute little smile in her head instead of the blank, lifeless eyes of Phyllis._

__

“So it was your decision to go to the forest?” Miller asked and Jenna nodded. 

Then she gave a humourless chuckle. “Should have gone to the lake instead,” she muttered. “But it’s on a busier road and I thought the chances for being seen were bigger there.” 

Her eyes met Hardy’s across the table and she gave a bitter, brittle smile. “You really have horrible timing, Mr Hardy.”

_Aaron cursed about the scratches on his hands and legs from the holly and brambles, but Jenna just kept quietly wiping her fingers in her trousers. They were full of dirt from the leaves and soil they’d piled on Phyllis but she was so well-hidden now that nobody would find her anytime soon. Sadly, Jenna looked back to the little woods. She would never be able to come back here, never take a picture of the oaks in spring again. It had been a wonderful location, silent and empty and only hers for the hours she’d walked it, only hers and Jeremy’s in his baby-carrier on her back._

_She would miss it._

_“Come, get into the car, Jen. It’s getting late and we still have stuff to do. Babe?”_

_“Yes, sorry.” She slipped inside and tried to be helpful. “Be careful with the reverse, there’s a bit of a bushy thing behind you.”_

_“I can drive, I’m not an idiot.” Aaron scrunched against something and Jenna bit her tongue. He was in just as shitty a mood as she was, understandably, and criticizing his driving wouldn’t help._

_But a few feet away from where they’d parked, Aaron started to curse. “Shit shit shit… I think we got a flat.”_

_“What? No! Aaron! I…” She stopped the ‘I told you to be careful’ because it was pointless. Having a fight_ now _would just make everything worse._

_They hobbled a little further but it was soon clear that they couldn’t continue like this. The tyre was completely flattened and if they drove on, they might damage the rim as well. The two of them stepped out and Jenna went to the back to get the jack and the spare wheel while Aaron took a look at the flat. She didn’t notice the car stopping at the junction until someone called out to them._

_“Are you alright? Need help?” Startled, she dropped the jack and stared at Aaron. He’d gone wide-eyed and in the light of their car, he looked incredibly pale. He whispered something but she couldn’t make out what it was. “A lift maybe?”_

_“Ah – No, thank you. We’re fine,” she stuttered and petrified, she watched the tall figure of the man walk towards the light, hand up so he wouldn’t be blinded by the headlights. She recognized him, not just from a year earlier when he’d come to their house to question Aaron but also from the papers and Maggie Radcliffe’s blog._

_She now understood what Aaron had tried to tell her._

“So you knew it was DI Hardy? You recognized him?” 

Jenna nodded. “Is quite distinct, isn’t he? And that accent’s not common down here.” Her voice was dull and her shoulders were sagging, everything about her kept screaming ‘defeat’. 

“What happened next?”

“Aaron hit him on the head with the torch,” she said, wincing a little and shooting a quick glance to Hardy. Maybe there was an apology in it but he didn’t feel like giving her even an inch. Not now, not anytime soon. “Knocked him out.”

_”Aaron! You can’t kill a policeman! This is so much worse than Phyllis, we can’t do that!”_

_“He’s not dead, jeez. Just unconscious. Quick, give me the rope-bag.”_

_Jenna reached into the boot and opened the sports-bag they’d packed in case their friend ‘Bernadette Woodward’ had been open to a bit of fun. She knew what he wanted and quickly threw him the ropes. They kept them neatly folded in an old pillow-case so they wouldn’t get dirty or tangled. Dirt left abrasions, and their play-rope was soft and comfortable to use. At least it had been until now._

_Swiftly, Aaron turned the detective on his stomach and tied his hands behind his back, then pulled the pillow-case over his head and zipped it about halfway so it wouldn’t be easily dislodged. “In case he wakes up,” he said at her uncomprehending look. Right. Of course._

_“What now?” Jenna shivered. They were still in the dark, on a stupid road in the middle of nowhere and now they had a tied-up policeman to deal with. How could this get any worse?_

_“We just dump him somewhere. Give him some of the powder and-“_

_“Aaron! We just killed a journalist with that stuff, what if he dies, too? Everyone knows him – they’ll look for him!”_

_“I told you,” Aaron’s voice was loud, close to a shout. “We’re not killing him! Just … knock him out for the night. Come on, we’ll get him somewhere safe and leave him in a field, he won’t remember anything. Come on, Jen! Let’s get him into his car. We can’t drive with the Golf, we’ll get it later.”_

_They grabbed the groggy, sluggishly moving detective and carried him to his car. His boot was spacious so that’s where they put him and then Aaron ran back to get the bag with the powder and to lock the car and switch off the lights. Once they were off, the world looked so much darker and more menacing that Jenna shivered again. From the boot, their captive moaned._

_“Aaron,” she hissed. “I think he’s waking up!”_

_“Shit.” Her husband scrambled to turn him around and quickly dipped his finger into the powder to swish it along Hardy’s gums. “That should hold him for now,” he said and hurried to the front. “C’m on, lets drive!”  
_

Miller took a drink of her water, but her face remained mostly impassive. She wasn’t looking at anything or anyone but Jenna Mayford. “Where did you go?” 

“A farm,” Jenna said. “I remembered it from one of my photography-lessons. Mr Mackowsky rented it out to the teacher for a weekend; not the whole farm, obviously, but his fields and we were allowed to take pictures of the animals and the farm-equipment. He had an old car, too, all beat up and rusty but still able to drive. Used it to get to his cattle with his dog. Great doggy,” she smiled wistfully in memory. “There was a big meadow I thought would be good. Building’s off a ways, nobody for miles…” 

_  
They reached the field and carried Hardy into it but it got harder and harder the further they went. The ground was uneven and they kept stumbling, and their charge wasn’t helping at all. He kept groaning and started to struggle and once, he kicked out and hit Jenna in the stomach. She dropped his legs. “This won’t do. He’s coming around. Aaron!”_

_“Okay, okay.” Aaron’d had his arms wrapped around Hardy’s torso underneath the armpits, taking the heavier part of him that was also moving a lot less and had the benefit of being tied up. He set him down and huffed, out of breath. Maybe he should take up some sports, Jenna thought a bit unkindly. His pouch wasn’t getting smaller. “I’ll go get more of the powder. Keep him still, okay? I’ll be right back.”_

_They’d managed to carry their load about hundred, hundred-fifty feet into the field and even though Aaron clearly hurried, the detective kept kicking and shifting and moaning. Jenna tried to calm him down, at first with gentle words and shushing but soon his struggles intensified and she had to use her full weight to keep him down. “Aaron!” she yelled, “hurry up!”_

_Jenna gave everything, trying first to lean on Hardy’s shoulders with all the strength she could muster and then to sit on his chest. He kept kicking, though, and throwing her off, and by the time Aaron came back with their play-bag, he’d kicked her thigh so hard, it felt like her leg would fall off._

_“Let me,” she hissed when Aaron scrambled in the bag, “you keep him down. Careful, he kicks like a donkey!”_

_With Aaron using his heavier weight, they managed to keep Hardy mostly on his back and Jenna hurried to open their little tin of powder without spilling anything. His struggles got worse, then, and with a mighty buck, he twisted and kicked and somehow managed to hit her chest, right on her left breast._

_It hurt so much, her breath stalled for a few seconds._

_“Jen! Are you okay? Jenna!”_

_“Yes, yes – keep him down. Fucker,” she snarled and went to take off the pillow-case to reach Hardy’s mouth. His eyes were frantically gleaming in the moonlight, not focussing on anything but still wide with panic. Jenna put her hands over his eyes to push his head down and to stop him looking at her like this. “Hold his mouth, I can’t do it all alone!”_

_Aaron, sitting astride Hardy’s chest now, pried open Hardy’s mouth and held it and Jenna pinched the powder to drop onto his tongue. At this point, she didn’t much care about measuring a dose, just used as much as would fit between her fingers and thumb and let it fall between his teeth. It was quite a lot, she would concede, but he was a strong, tall person and surely needed more than she did to conk out for the rest of the night. After nearly being bit by the snapping jaws because her husband was an idiot and let go of his mouth too soon, Jenna scrambled away._

_It probably didn’t take long until the fight went out of Hardy and he grew sluggish and finally still and soft but it sure felt like forever. By that time, Aaron and she were panting hard, looking completely dishevelled._

_Her thigh hurt and her tit was pure agony, and, she now noticed, during the struggle they’d spilled their powder in the field. “Fucker,” she spit and shoved at the now-pliant detective with her foot – not a kick, just a shove. Hardy didn’t react but kept on breathing slow and measured. “Fuckwit.”_

_His shirt had dislodged during the fight and because she was hurt and she’d had the adrenaline-kick of a lifetime and not a pleasant one, Jenna crabwalked to the bag and rummaged until she found one of the markers. She walked back and shoved Aaron away, then tore open the shirt completely and wrote ‘fucking pig’ all across his chest. Then, for good measure, she added the drawing of a penis._

__

O o o o O O o o o O

Miller wetted her lips. “Why do you have permanent marker in your bag?” she asked.

Jenna heaved a breath and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. It wasn’t so much out of exasperation but looked like she was trying to think about how to explain it. “For playing,” she decided on. “Sometimes, Aaron would label body-parts he did something with while I’m out and we make a game of guessing what he did with it. Just for fun, really. But we have quite a few of them in the bag, in case others want to play, too.”

She was tired, that much was obvious. Her eyes were dull now and there was a distance in them that would probably only get deeper the longer this interview carried on. 

Hardy shifted on the seat and took a sip from his water. He very much wanted to go home and take a shower. Brush his teeth. 

“Why so much?” Miller continued. “He didn’t just have that one word on him.”

“Couldn’t stop,” Jenna shrugged. “Just… After all that trouble he caused, we were a bit angry and once I started, Aaron wanted to write something, too. Just… we sort of started competing, one-upping each other and he wasn’t even doing anything anymore. Got a bit overexcited. We were both kinda black and blue by then.”

“Oh, I’m _so_ sorry,” Hardy muttered and flinched at the kick he got from Miller for that. Right. Keeping silent. He shifted once more, crossed his arms in front of him and waved his hand a bit so Jenna would continue.

_”Jesus…”_

_She hadn’t even noticed how far they’d driven this game of ‘who can come up with the best insults’. But now, in the middle of the night with the moon shining on the field and causing the naked skin in front of her to stand out on the dark ground, it was pretty obvious that they’d gone far beyond what she’d intended._

_If she’d even consciously intended anything at all._

_“Aaron… We can’t leave him like this.”_

_“What? Why?” Aaron shook himself back to the present. He was flushed and his eyes were shot wide, a look she remembered from their sex-plays. This had given him a kick, and Jenna was rattled. Like him, she’d gone somewhere else while they’d painted and drawn and written on the man in front of them, while they’d taken off pieces of clothing one by one to expose more canvas for their art. But she didn’t think they’d gone to the same place. She’d mostly been too angry to think, but if she didn’t know better, she’d have said the fight and the adrenaline had aroused Aaron like, if not more than, their games in the bedroom._

_Did she know better?_

_The detective had not moved, mostly slept and when he’d been awake, he had been so out of it they could just order him to lift an arm and he would try to comply. Mostly, though, he’d been asleep._

_“We need to put his clothes back on,” she murmured. It was different than seeing herself wilful and pliant on film – she’d always consented to everything beforehand, and she’d always trusted her husband. The detective, though, wasn’t a part of their games. He’d not asked for any of this and wouldn’t have wanted them to touch him, certainly not everywhere they had._

_She shuddered, remembering turning him around and untying him to better reach his back. At one point, he’d been half-awake and stared at Jenna, kept staring at her with huge, dark eyes that were clearly struggling to understand and puzzle things together, blinking at her with a sleep-addled gaze. He’d kept on staring until she’d pulled the pillow-case over him again._

_His breath and pulse, throughout all this, had remained steady._

_Quickly now, she scrambled to find the underpants. “Help me get his legs. Aaron!” Together, they put him back in a semblance of decency. By the time they got to his shoes, Jenna just didn’t care enough anymore to do more than just jam them on the feet._

_They stood up and surveyed their surroundings._

_“Shit,” Aaron muttered. The field was covered in footprints and very obvious signs of struggle, the grass bent and the ground ripped open. This looked like the … well, it looked like a crime-scene. Aaron was patting his pockets, looking around him at the ground, searching. “Jenna, where’s the tin?”_

_She looked around, too, turning over and over and then they searched together, even went so far as to get the torch._

_It remained lost._

_“Shit shit shit shit.” Jenna pulled at her hair. “Fuck, it must have both of our prints on it. Shit – Aaron….” She stared at him and it didn’t take him long to come to the same conclusion she had._

_“We need to move him away from here.”_

_Luckily, pliant as he was, carrying Hardy back to his car was a lot easier than it had been carrying him away from it. Aaron suggested they’d get rid of his car’s plates so it would be harder to identify it if anyone saw them and they just chose the next convenient field to put the detective down._

_Aaron was already on his way back towards his car but Jenna once more checked Hardy’s pulse and breathing lest he died after all, like Phyllis. He seemed fine. Still completely out of it but otherwise – fine._

_“Sorry,” she murmured and swiped his hair away from his eyes, then pulled his jacket a little bit higher so he wouldn’t be so cold. “Just… bad luck, mate.”_

_Hurriedly, she followed Aaron and drove away, back to the rental on the car-park. The night wasn’t over yet, and there was still a lot to be done.  
_


	24. Chapter 24

Ellie blinked, trying to make sense of what she’d heard. It wouldn’t quite connect but she put on a smile and urged Jenna to continue. She very deliberately didn’t look over to her friend.

“What did you do then?”

“Drove to the car-park, collected the rental. We went to the Holiday Park next, used her car to get her things. Just in case anyone looks out and sees it then all they’d see would be Phyllis’s car.”

“What did you do with Phyllis Simon’s possessions?”

Jenna stared at her fingers, scratching the nail of one thumb with the nail of the other. “Put the clothes in one of those donation-boxes for clothes. It was nearly empty, so everything fit. The trolley case we dropped into a big bin behind Tesco.”

“And her computer?”

Jenna frowned. “Aaron said it would be a shame to destroy it. He took it home, wiped it clean and sold it online. Told him it would be a risk but it was sold so quickly, he didn’t even have it in the house for more than three days.” She scoffed. “And here I am, fucking up everything because I didn’t want to waste the fucking milk.”

Ellie pretended to be sympathetic when all she wanted to do was shake the woman in front of them so hard that her teeth rattled. She shot a very short glance at Hardy but he was sitting still as a statue. He must have noticed her look because he glanced back and gave her a nod without even moving his head. 

Now that they had reached the end of the tale, Jenna slumped more and more into herself. Even her hair looked dull by now and her eyes were flat and empty. She might have looked pitiful if Ellie had enough sympathy left in her to feel pity. 

She didn’t. 

“What did you do with the car?” 

“Drove to where our car still stood. Changed the tyre. Aaron insisted we dump the other one in the quarry-lake, so we drove there. Just dropped it over the ledge.”

“What time was that? Approximately.”

Jenna shrugged. “Dunno. Three? Four, maybe? Didn’t look at the clock. Wasn’t yet sunrise, though.”

“Alright.” Ellie took a long, deep breath. “Anything else you’d like to add? Anything you didn’t say, anything … anything?”

She shook her head. “Not really, no. Just…” Jenna bit her lip and her eyes started to fill. “Just… what happens now? What will happen to Jeremy?” And when Ellie couldn’t answer because she didn’t know, “Can I see him? Please? Just… I want to see him before I’m going away for so long.” 

Ellie felt Hardy move, saw him lean forward when he’d been stone-faced and silent for so long. His voice was rough and he croaked a little. “PC Frier will be along to bring him over. You won’t be allowed alone with him for now. A social worker will take care of him until we know what will happen next.” He stood and gathered his glass and the water-bottle and Ellie bent down towards the tape. 

“Interview terminated at eight-o-five.” She clicked it off and ejected the tape, then followed Hardy out of the door, glancing backwards just for a second to see Jenna slumped in her seat, her lawyer attempting to provide a little comfort. 

Outside and with the door shut, Hardy sagged against the wall and slid downwards until he was sitting with his legs bent nearly up to his nose, arms resting on his knees. He really had long legs. 

Ellie refrained from asking if he was alright. Instead, she slid down opposite him, legs stretched out and tapped her feet against his across the floor. For a minute or two, they remained like this, silent and too tired to think. Well – she was. Who knew what went on in Hardy’s mind.

“I think,” he finally said, “I think I want to go home.”


	25. Chapter 25

Against Miller’s insistence, he walked. It was quicker and wouldn’t lead to awkward questions or even more awkward silences. After a shouting match which he won, Hardy stormed off towards the beach and towards home.

Halfway back, he got a text from Daisy asking where he was. He could practically feel the anxiety through the device and instead of replying, he pushed ‘call’.

The rest of the walk they talked about nothing in particular. School, her mother, boys – _no, really Dad, I don’t have a sweetheart and how old are you even that you would call it that?_ \- and Chloe. Apparently, _she_ had a sweetheart again. Daisy wouldn’t say who, just that he was really nice and was doing Chloe good and distracting her from being a ‘fucking adult’. 

“Language,” he mumbled half-heartedly, long-since given up being the stern parent in their relationship. If she allowed him to be the friendly, advice-wielding cool guy who lived with her, he should probably be grateful. She could mock Chloe all she wanted, but Daisy had grown up rapidly herself in the last year. He was so proud of her, while at the same time mourned the loss of her being a careless child.

_”So, how long’s that walk gonna last? Just asking because I’m knackered and would like to go to bed now.”_

“It’s finished exactly now,” he said while opening the front-door. “Also, your bloody chicken is sitting outside on the fence again.”

From the couch, Daisy groaned. She was wearing her pyjama and was wrapped in a blanket, the telly running without sound behind her. “I don’t know what else to do with her. I checked the stupid pen _twice_ , there’s no way she’s getting out!”

“Obviously, she does,” Hardy said, leaning over her and kissing her forehead. Less cool guy and more Dad, but she was his little girl and would forever be, no matter how old they both got. “Go to bed, darling. Long day.”

She smiled softly and leaned against his coat but recoiled. “Yuk, Dad, you smell. Go take a shower.” Daisy shoved him and he huffed in pretended indignation but went to follow her advice. Either the stress from the day or the finalization of the case had put him in a strange mood, where everything felt like he was wading through soft clouds of downs or cotton-balls. Maybe tomorrow, something would kick in – he was expecting some sort of fallout for certain – but right now, he enjoyed the distance it was giving him. 

He fell asleep at once and didn’t remember dreaming anything.

O o o o O O o o o O

When Ellie arrived the next day, it was already ten-thirty. She’d allowed herself to be late, indulging in a rare family-breakfast with her sons talking about silly, inane things that had nothing at all to do with murder and abduction or violation of body and mind.

Tom had seemed chipper and when she asked why, he’d blushed in a way that had set her maternal instincts on fire. Could it be her little boy was falling in love? She’d pried a little, as any self-respecting mother would do, but he’d shut her out and with rolling eyes, he’d taken his bike to school. He had, though, given her a kiss on the cheek without being forced. 

Even now, in the parking-lot of the station, she could feel it lingering on her skin. 

The moment she stepped into the building, though, she shook off the softness from home to concentrate on work. From Friday on, she had a week off and there was a lot to do still to have a clean desk for her holiday. 

Even with the case – cases, plural, actually – cracked, there was still so much to be done. Apart from the goddamn paperwork, they needed to gather all evidence so the prosecution would be able to build a solid case. As she stepped into CID, most of her colleagues were already bustling about. She saw Katie Harford on the phone, obviously arguing with someone, and Orrin Hagarth looking exceptionally grouchy while he clicked at something on the computer. Either he’d been given a shitty task again from the boss or the stupid program for the digital reports had broken down once more.

Through the glass-door, she could see Hardy already behind his desk, glasses down on his nose while he was studying papers. She debated between getting tea first or sating her curiosity about what he was so fascinated by but in the end, tea won out. 

“Morning,” she said as she put his mug in front of Hardy, taking her seat on the second chair in the room. It was strange, Ellie thought, but she couldn’t remember when exactly it had found its way into his office. There used to be only the sofa and his own chair. “Have you slept?”

“Quite well, actually,” he said without looking up. He reached for his mug – again without looking – and took a sip from the tea. His grimace was fun to watch. “What’s this?” he growled, finally meeting her eyes.

“Chamomile-tea. It’s good for calming nerves.”

“I am calm,” he said and stared at her like she’d betrayed him somehow for bringing him anything but his preferred stout black tea. 

“I didn’t know that when I walked in, though, didn’t I?” Ellie sipped her own tea – not chamomile. “Was just being cautious.”

Hardy sniffed and took another sip, reluctant but obviously too lazy to go and make himself something else. “If you’d been on time, you’d have known that.”

“That’s right, Sir. But as it was, I wasn’t and I didn’t and so – this.” She beamed at him and leaned closer. “What have you got there?”

“It’s the taped confession of Aaron Mayford. While you were at home, sleeping or doing your hair or whatever, DC Harford had the pleasure of confronting Mr Mayford with last night’s statement from his wife.”

“Oh!” Bollocks – Ellie had wanted to do that and see Mayford deflate once all the hot air left him. “So he confessed, too?”

Hardy took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “He basically confirmed everything. Gave us the location of the field where they – uh, took me to first.” His little falter was the only hint that whole thing still bothered him. If Ellie wouldn’t have known him so well, she’d believe him to be exactly like he’d always been – slightly grumpy, secretly caring and exceptionally stubborn. She did know him better, though.

“Right. Anything else interesting?”

“I sent SOCO there to look for that powder-tin. We could use a bit more fingerprints to back up anything, in case they retract their confession. Don’t know how, but by now, I’m not taking any chances anymore.” 

“Oh, I bet Brian was delighted to be given a whole field to play in,” Ellie smirked and Hardy might even have twitched a little smirk of his own. “What about the laptop?”

“Harford is still trying to chase it down. Not sure if it will bring results, but considering Mayford’s shitty regard for online-security, he might have left something on the computer that can be used. Hagarth will be searching for the missing belongings in the donation-bins and check if anyone possibly removed the trolley from the bin at Tesco.” 

Ellie snickered. That explained Orrin’s bad mood. Well – he deserved it. “Right. So – what do I get to do?”

“How should I know?” Hardy looked truly astonished at the question. “You’re a bloody detective – go find out. Unbelievable, finds my fingerprint on a stupid pint of milk but can’t even remember her job.” 

Well, if that was supposed to be a compliment or praise, it was so subtle that it came out backhanded. “Right,” Ellie said and stood, grabbing his mug on her way out. That arse didn’t deserve her chamomile tea, anyway. 

“Oi! My tea – Miller!”

O o o o O O o o o O

After lunch, which Ellie had shared with Bob from downstairs at the chippy and not with her knobbish boss, there was a paper-bag on her desk. To her surprise, it contained a loaf of freshly-baked rye-bread and a little sticky-note with a smiley-face and a small drawing of a daisy. Damn the grumpy bastard, now he wouldn’t even let her stay mad at him for at least a day!

With full intention of telling him off for being nice, she stomped into Hardy’s office but was met with a raised hand. “Yes. Yes – thank you. Ah – yah, mail just came in.” He hung up without further words and turned to his screen. “What?” He asked her, distracted. 

“Who was that?”

“Coroner. Autopsy’s done.” He hit print and turned to the side to gather the printouts. “Nothing conclusive. If what the Mayfords said is true, she might have just had a bad reaction to the drug, possibly alcohol-induced. She had more than one glass of wine before the Mayfords turned up in the pub and the coroner says it’s highly likely that it resulted in a heart-failure.”

“Highly likely is not conclusive,” Ellie cautioned, ignoring the word ‘heart-failure’ and how it clenched her stomach for now. 

“No, it’s not. But all of the ingredients of the drug on their own can cause heart-arrythmia or apnoea if dosed wrong. He said that mixed together, there’s really no guaranty at all that the user will survive. He said it’s like playing Russian Roulette.”

She swallowed, not able to pull her eyes away from Hardy. For once, he was meeting her gaze head-on and she kept thinking how fucking lucky he’d been to still be here. Maybe Ellie was imagining things, but she supposed that from the look in his eyes, his thoughts were running along the same track.

After that sobering moment, she returned to her desk and started on the paperwork. She didn’t know what Hardy had been doing but at around four, he rapped his knuckles on her table, clad in his jacket and an impatient scowl. 

“What?”

“I want to take a look at the field. Coming?”

O o o o O O o o o O

The pasture they ended up at was just starting to sprout the first tentative flowers, yellow and white and delicate. It might have looked pretty, but the white tents and yellow tapes from the SOCO-team fluttering in the soft wind made it a very strange, slightly absurd sight.

The vans and cars from Brian’s scientists nearly blocked the whole of the dirt-track, so Ellie had parked further out and she and Hardy walked the rest. Shortly before they reached the field’s gate, they met Evelyn Llewellyn in her white paper-suit, carrying samples to the big evidence-van. “Oh, hello detectives,” she greeted, smiling brightly. Her freckled nose had reddened in the cold air, but she looked fresh-faced and bubbly just like she usually did. “Didn’t expect you here. Anything I can help you with?”

“No thanks, Evelyn,” Ellie replied, gaze locked on Hardy’s back who was pulled further, towards the path that was cordoned off to be safe to walk on without destroying evidence. “He just … likes to …” Her voice petered off as she realized that she didn’t know what exactly Hardy was doing here and if she should voice any of her suspicions regarding it. Evelyn, though, gave a soft smile. 

“I get it.” And maybe she truly did. “Boss’s up there, you can talk to him if you want.”

“Oh? Brian’s here? I thought it was his day off?” Hardy had stopped at the gate, hands stuffed in his pockets and gazing in their direction but over their heads, maybe watching the clouds or maybe just seeing nothing. 

“It is.” Evelyn winked. “But he seems to think he’s the only one capable of handling a crime-scene correctly, despite all of us knowing very well what to do. If you ask me, he’s taken this personal.”

Ellie felt her mouth drop and she shot a look at Hardy, then back. “Really?”

“Oh, he comes back grouching about your boss every time they meet, but since this happened to Hardy, he’d been logging overtime like you wouldn’t believe. A right growly bear he was, too. Is it true, though? Did you get who did it?”

“Yes,” Ellie said, then smiled quickly when she noticed Hardy shifting impatiently. “Thanks, I’ll let you get back to work.” 

“Anything?” Hardy asked, already turning to continue his walk up the soft little hill where they could see the other SOCOs bustling about. 

She shook her head. Brian, clearly recognizable even with his white hood, spotted them and stumped over, scowling. “What, don’t think we can do our work without supervision?” Ellie found it hard to believe that he truly cared about Hardy enough to sacrifice his free day, but then again she kept bickering with her boss and she very much _did_ care. 

The expected sharp comeback didn’t come, Hardy’s attention fixed on the field behind them. Ellie gave an apologetic smile and tried to engage Brian so her boss could do whatever it was he needed to do here. “Did you find the powder-box?”

“Yes, just this minute, actually. Peter’s getting it to the van right now. Might hold prints, but it’s not sure yet. Is it crucial for the case?” He shot a quick look at Hardy, who was just staring at the scene. Brian’s gaze shifted back to Ellie and he raised an eyebrow in question together with a head-bob towards Hardy. She gave a reassuring nod in reply. 

The two of them chatted a bit about completely inane, personal things like her children, her father, Lucy and the new woman in Brian’s life. Now and then, Ellie took her eyes off and followed Hardy’s fixed gaze out, trying to guess what he might be thinking. 

It was a startling sight, she had to admit. Even though the vegetation was shooting up from the ground now that spring was fast approaching, the place where the Mayfords had fought with Hardy was clearly recognizable. The grass there was pressed down and the ground was covered in prints and shifted soil. Two or three molehills had been flattened and even without advanced crime-scene skills, Ellie could see where someone had knelt and where someone had lain and struggled. Little flags dotted the area where something interesting had been found, and even knowing what had occurred here and being prepared for something like this, Ellie felt a sense of shock upon seeing how much of a fight must have taken place. 

She saw Hardy absentmindedly rub his wrists, frowning as if trying to remember anything. Ellie hoped he never did. Even looking at this made her skin crawl. Then again, maybe remembering would be better than wondering? Maybe one day she would pester him for his opinion.

“I’ve got to get back to them,” Brian said, indicating his crew who seemed to be doing fine without him. He gave her a smile and shot her boss a grouchy look before walking off and Ellie stepped closer until her shoulders nearly brushed with Hardy’s. 

Together, they stood watching until Hardy took a deep breath and turned away. “I need a drink.”


	26. Epilogue

Amidst the bubbling crowd of early pub-goers, Hardy was watching his whiskey like one would a precious piece of jewellery, twisting it this way and that to see how the liquid caught the light. Ellie, already two pints in, leaned next to him against the bar, her back to the bartender and elbows on the counter so she could keep the room in her sight. 

They hadn’t quite managed to leave until half seven and Ellie had not been convinced that Hardy would actually go until he had stood at her desk, slightly nervous but trying to cover it with a mighty scowl. ‘Coming?’ he’d said and Ellie had. They had been here for about an hour now, watching the customers trickle in over time and he hadn’t even taken one sip of his whiskey yet. Apparently, when Hardy said he needed a drink, it meant he wanted to look at one. 

If she didn’t know better – which, come to think of it, she didn’t – she might figure he was a recovering alcoholic staring temptation in the face. But no. She’d seen the beer in his fridge and he’d drunk wine at her house, back when her life had been so different that pleasing and winning over her new boss, knob that he was, had seemed so important. 

“Ever wonder who invented beer?” she asked, taking a sip. It felt like this was the first words she’d said since leaving the station after dotting more I’s and crossing more t’s than she could remember doing ever before in her life. This case would not be dismissed due to procedural mistakes, not on her watch! Hardy had tried to give something of a thank-you-speech in CID, but all that’d come out in front of the silent room had been a ‘Well then,‘ and a nod.

Nobody had dared to laugh this time, but Ellie had given Harford a very distinct and approving thumbs-up which had been met with a blush of delight.

“The Chinese. Or the Celts, depending on whether you mean in general or in Europe.”

“What?”

Hardy rolled his eyes heavenwards. “Beer.”

“Oh. Right. Really, the Chinese?” She took one more sip and smacked her lips. “Doesn’t taste very Chinese. But I suppose I wouldn’t know the difference anyway.” She took a longer draft. “Still good, though.”

Next to her, Hardy moved so he was sitting sideways on the stool, looking at her fully for the first time in what felt like ages. His eyebrows moved upwards and he gave her something close to a smile. “Now whisky – that was invented by the Scots.” He toasted her lightly with his glass and she returned the gesture, giving him a full smile instead of his botched attempt. He took a deep drink and set the glass back on the table. “Any plans for your days off?”

Ellie blinked at the non sequitur and needed a moment to see if he was setting her a trap. No – nothing came to mind and no reason at all. “No, Tom still has school, so we can’t go anywhere for long and the Easter-holidays are too short. I’m just looking forward to doing nothing for a while. Sleep in, spoil my boys. Maybe do some gardening.” She doubted it, though. Ellie had never acquired a green thumb. “Eat lots and lots of pizza.”

He grunted something, maybe approval or maybe the opposite. 

“Do you think I should allow Tom to get a new phone?” she finally asked after rolling the question around in her head. It had been bothering her for a while now, not sure if she should trust her son or if she was making a terrible mistake. Either way, she felt like it would result in being a horrible mother. “’s just, he now only has one of those old Nokia-things I kept. No smartphone, and he’d been doing so well for so long and he’s earned nearly enough to buy one from doing the paper-rounds. But it’s probably too early. Oh god – am I a terrible person that I don’t trust my son?”

“Naw. You’re fine.” He didn’t elaborate and kept watching the crowds around them and that marked the end of that terrible attempt at small-talk. They finished their drinks and headed out into the night. The chill hit her at once after the heat of the pub and Ellie drew her coat tighter. She thought about taking a taxi but it seemed foolish, her house wasn’t that far away. She could probably use the exercise after sitting around so much the whole day. 

Hardy gave her a quick glance. “Walking?” 

“Thought so, yeah.”

“Right.” And with that, they headed out towards her house, Hardy not even pretending he was doing anything other than walking her home.

They didn’t speak, just watched the night fall across the stupid little town she loved so much and which had given her so much grief along with so much joy. The further they walked, the more she noticed the man beside her losing the tension in his body until, finally, at her door, he looked calm and collected. His eyes were less strained and his face had relaxed and together with the wind-tousled hair, he looked younger than she’d ever seen him and nearly as boyish as he did on those rare occasions when they met for non-work-related reasons. 

“Will you be okay?” she asked, meaning the walk home just as much as anything else. He rolled his eyes but this time, she needed to have an answer. “No, really. Will you?”

He sighed and shifted from his right to his left foot. “Yes,” he said after a moment where he actually seemed to think about it. “Yes, I will be. Night, Miller,” he said and turned to leave. At her gate, though, he turned around once more. “And, Miller?”

“Hm?”

“Thanks.” His smile was small and frankly, a little bit shitty, but, Ellie thought, it was completely honest and strangely care-free, and she would have liked to bottle it up so she could keep if for those times when he would inevitably drive her once more to contemplating human sacrifice. “I…” he scratched his head and tried another smile, with a bit more success this time. “Appreciate it.” A lightning-quick grin. “Like a cup of tea.”

“Fuck off, Sir,” she shot back, but grinned when she saw his face turn soft and his eyes twinkle in quiet delight. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow, Miller.”

O o o End o o O

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, folks. It has been an unbelievable pleasure to write this, first while actually doing the writing (though I had some problems here and there, it was mostly a constant wave of words) and secondly while posting. And that last part is all due to you! I love you, all of you who commented and kudos'd and who will do so in the future. I love you SO MUCH! 
> 
> I wish I could promise more. I want to - believe me, I do! - but for some reason it's not flowing like before. I hope I can find my muse and tickle her into compliance, but I cannot promise you anything. The only thing I will and can promise is that I won't EVER start posting a story that isn't finished. So if you find a new fic to this series, I can promise you that it's finished and if nobody murders me on the way, it will be posted completely. That a deal? 
> 
> Love you all, wish you a happy weekend, and if anyone's interested: yes, my story has a working time-line! I have the dates and days listed in my word-document and if anyone needs to be certain, I can provide them with it ;-) 
> 
> Bye you lovely folks, hope to see you soon again!
> 
> ~Marlowe


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